


Civility

by dixiehellcat



Series: Wordsmith [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Extremis, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Iron Dad and Spider Son ftw, Male-Female Friendship, Meet-Cute, Multiverse Shenanigans, Non-Canonical Character Death, Sokovia Accords, Team Pepperony, Thaddeus Ross is an asshole, What Happened in Siberia, and work together like a team should, canon-divergence--Spider-Man: Homecoming, fyi the Wordsmith verse is a Sony-free zone, the Avengers plan ahead, the avengers love peter parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-03-19 18:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 96,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: When Thaddeus Ross uses the Avengers' own actions against them to gin up support for an oppressive slate of restrictions on superheroes, the team is ready with their own ideas, and have each others' backs. Chrissy fights her own battles with the media, her family, and her emotions, as she strives to be there for her friends and sort out her own feelings. Add bombings, frame-ups, a psycho out to destroy the Avengers, and a dangerous (and dangerously handsome) assassin, and this is the busiest Chrissy's life has been in a good while!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> At last, the Civil War remake nobody but me asked for. LOL. Seriously, I've been looking forward to writing this part since the first time I saw CW last summer! As usual, the storyline will be a blend of canon and decidedly NOT canon. With the changes in previous installments, I think you know to expect the characters to act and react a little differently than we saw on screen, logically so. Chrissy and her friends are in for a wild ride, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Oh, just so you know, this first chapter contains some pretty real talk about losing a loved one and the associated feelings.

Sometimes the phone rings, and the world seems to stop. The Monday morning I was driving up to the Avengers training compound, and the phone displayed my cousin Darlene’s number in Tennessee, was one of those times. She and her mom, my aunt Peewee, were the boots on the ground who stayed closely in touch with the staff caring for my mom; first at her assisted living facility, then at the nursing home we had to move her into when her dementia worsened. I got periodic update calls, usually to share fun things like pie night or Mom’s newfound fondness for bingo.

This was not that. This was worse. This was word that Mom had collapsed at the dining table after breakfast, and been rushed to the hospital. I promised Darlene I’d be there pronto, and floored it. I was almost at the compound, and the visit wasn’t urgent, since I met with the team members based there regularly via Skype; it was just a pleasure trip, as much as anything involved with my daily work as the public representative of the Avengers was. So I drove the last few minutes, rolled out of my car, and informed a startled Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson coming in from their morning run that I had to drive straight back to NYC and why.

“Uh, how about no?” Steve replied. “Quinjet’s on the roof and fully fueled. I can get you back to the tower in half an hour. In fact—” he furrowed his brow—“let’s go grab your stuff, and I can have you, where is it, Jackson, Tennessee? I’ll have JARVIS check the nav, but just back of the envelope figuring, probably about a thousand miles, so a couple of hours at the most.”

“But—Steve,” I protested as the two marched me into the compound’s main building, “you’re needed here, and I can get a commercial flight—”

“Sounds like time’s of the essence here, Christabel,” Sam gently chided me. “Your mama’s not gonna wait forever.” 

I halted and stared at him. From nearly anybody else, I wouldn’t have tolerated even the suggestion Mom wasn’t going to pull through, the way she always pulled through everything from pneumonia to ingrown toenails. But these people, my friends, saw a lot of death. Dealing with it was their job. “Yeah…yeah, I know,” I said, forcing back the worry.

Sam gave me a quick sweaty hug and headed for a shower. The Maximoffs and Vision met us on the way up to the rooftop landing pad, saddened by my news. “We will pray for wellness for your mother, and strength for you,” Pietro said firmly while Wanda hugged my neck and kissed my cheek. 

Vision hovered solemnly beside me as I hurried. “You know my emotional processing capabilities are not as a human’s, but I can conceive of a circumstance in which one of my creators was damaged, and I am certain that I would…experience concern, and distress. It is my hope that your situation will be resolved in an acceptable manner.” No, it was most certainly not a conventional expression of empathy, but it was Vision, it was the best he could do, and I appreciated it.

“Keep us informed!” the Scarlet Witch scolded me before I climbed up into the quinjet. 

Steve chatted lightly as he pointed the craft back toward the Big Apple. “Trying to distract me?” I teased.

“More or less. Do I need a briefing on what you’ve got going on, in case you’re tied up for a while down there?”

“No, Pepper can access my files and she knows most of what’s in the pipeline.” I dug my StarkPad out of my bag and double checked. “Nothing pressing, you’re all good for a week or so, unless, like, Tony blows up the Holland Tunnel one midnight and I have to talk the local CBS affiliate into letting me hook up a satellite feed to apologize to the world for his ass.”

“His ass should never need apologizing for.” 

“Oh, the next time you tick me off, I’m gonna tell Pepper you said that.”

“Hey! I don’t have to want it to notice he’s got a good one! He’s noticed mine!”

“That does not surprise me, but I did not need that mental image, either.” The distraction tactic did work, until we started to land atop the Avengers Tower and Steve had JARVIS radio an alert ahead. As I hopped out and dashed down to my apartment to grab a bag and some clothes, I couldn’t help but tense up. It wasn’t just worry about Mom, but thinking about having to go back into the life I left behind. I had changed so much in the years since I left west Tennessee. At least Mom wouldn’t be an issue; she had only known me occasionally since before I moved to the West Coast anyway, so she hadn’t missed me. I never thought I’d consider her dementia a blessing of a weird sort. 

Steve stayed on the jet, checking systems and setting course, I assumed. Apparently he was doing more than just that, because by the time I got back to the roof, Pepper, Nat and Tony were waiting for me with hugs and orders to keep them updated too. Once airborne again, I focused on making sure my work was indeed covered as much as possible, and Steve launched into tales of the Howling Commandoes. “Will you get bonus points for having Captain America personally deliver you?” he asked jokingly as he circled the hospital rooftop; he’d radioed ahead and gotten special permission to land on their emergency helipad.

“More likely somebody will cut their eyes at me and mutter under their breath that I’m getting above my raising,” I shrugged. “Not like I care what anybody else here thinks of me anymore.”

Steve didn’t say anything while we landed, but he walked me to the hatch and wrapped me in a huge hug. “Anything I can do, any of us can do, you let us know. That’s an order.” 

“Yes sir, Captain,” I grinned before I took off. 

A nurse was waiting to show me down to ICU; he’d been caring for Mom since she was brought in, and when pressed, he admitted quietly he suspected she wouldn’t last till the end of the week. “I’ve been practicing a long time and I’m pretty good at estimates, though I’d rather I wasn’t.”

Mom had gotten medication to help her rest, and I was thankful to see her sleeping peacefully, even snoring a little in a perfectly normal way. A part of me halfway expected her to wake up and be herself, in spite of all my knowledge to the contrary. I sat down beside her bed and told her everything I had been up to lately, the big and the small: our searches for future superheroes, my trip to Asgard, how proud I was of my friends for their courage and caring, how much I wished she could meet them.

Forty-five minutes after I arrived, the nurse stopped by to check on me. While we talked quietly (about Mom, of course), she let out a breath and…just didn’t take another one. It was as easy a way to go as possible, I supposed, not that that made it any easier. I texted Darlene and aunt Peewee, and went on autopilot for the next couple of days while they helped me through making arrangements. Somewhere in the process, I texted Pepper too, figuring she was the most responsible one and could let everybody know I would be out of pocket for a while.

I stayed with my aunt and uncle, and stepped out of the house Wednesday afternoon to pile into an SUV full of cousins and head for the funeral home, when people began to call out in alarm and look upward. It took a second for me to register that what rattled them was commonplace for me: the whine of repulsors, and the sight of War Machine making a light landing in the front yard. Rhodey stepped out, in full dress blues, and I nearly fell into his arms. There were mumbles and side-eyes and a hint of tension, as I expected, but I had exactly zero fucks to give about that. I took his hand and introduced him to my family. Uncle Jake sized him up, shook his hand, and said, “Proud to meet you, son. Thank you for your service. Could you move your gear off of my grass?”

Rhodey couldn’t stay for the funeral; the leave he had begged was only for a few hours, and War Machine was needed on the other side of the world in the morning, but I reassured him that I appreciated his coming more than he knew. After he left, I thought about the balance of my old life and new, as I stood by Mom’s casket and looked at her tucked in with her favorite stuffed sloth. Bruce was still on his God-knew-where sabbatical with the Hulk, and Thor was roaming space with his brother pursuing intel on the mysterious Infinity Stones. The rest of the Avengers had been called out to Africa, chasing an ex-HYDRA mercenary and terrorist, so there wasn’t going to be much more of a balancing act needed. I’d have to set Christine Everhart, Avengers PR manager, aside, and remember how to be just Chrissy from Carroll County for a few days.

At least that was what I figured, until I heard a shuffling and hum of chatter out in the hallway, and then Pepper’s familiar voice calling my name. More unexpected still, Tony was right beside her; he wasn’t good with funerals, I knew, but he had the full-on Stark attitude wrapped around him like the Iron Man armor. “Pep? Y’all didn’t have to—” I started.

“Of course we didn’t have to,” she chided gently. “We wanted to.”

“As if we were gonna leave you in the briar patch alone,” Tony put in under his breath, giving every raised eyebrow in the room back tenfold. I opened my mouth to make introductions and make nice with my kin, then shut it. _You know what, no,_ I thought. _I’m not above them, I know that, and I don’t have to prove a damn thing to anybody. Mom would be ashamed of me for thinking that._

The briar patch treated them surprisingly well. I admit I was a bit nervous when I stepped away for a moment and returned to spy Mom’s feisty 98-year-old aunt Avonelle appearing to give Tony a good talking to, but he started to laugh quietly and squeezed her hands where she sat on her walker seat, so all seemed well. The biggest surprise came late in the afternoon when one more familiar face slouched through the door. “Clint!” I almost yelped and rushed over into yet another hug. 

“And I thought I lived in Bumfuck Egypt. You know how many times I had to change planes to get here?” His snide comments were belied by his warm eyes and smile. “Didn’t want you to be left at the mercy of these rednecks. Or them at yours, for that matter. “

I thanked him, and made them all come back to my aunt’s to help us put a dent in the food friends and neighbors brought over. “Now,” Tony said as he took in the spread that looked like a church potluck, “I get why you cook every time shit goes down.”

“’Round here, we take care of each other, son,” Uncle Jake said. “Belly on up to the trough with us, if y’ain’t too good.”

“Too good, for this?” Tony demanded. “I’ll have you know I took Chrissy to Asgard to cook country food for a queen, and they wanted to make her royalty. Which would have been fine, except they wanted to keep her, and that wasn’t gonna fly with us…” As expected, Tony proceeded to charm even the most judgmental of my relatives, and I knew exactly why; he was trying to take the pressure off me for a few minutes. That went on the very long list of reasons I was more fond of him than words could describe.

The next day, with my family and friends around me, we laid Mom to rest. I drifted away as the grave was being closed, and settled on the low wall around a small garden in the cemetery, with Mom’s stuffed sloth in my lap, rescued from the casket at the last minute when I changed my mind about burying him with her. A few minutes later, I felt more than heard Pepper approach and sit down beside me. “Maybe I should have stayed here,” I said, and jiggled the sloth. “Mom won this playing bingo. I didn’t even know she liked bingo. She didn’t know me, but…I still should’ve been here. I would’ve known those things. I could’ve told her things. My cousins have been telling me stories about her past, that I never heard, because I didn’t know to ask back when she could tell me. They don’t say it, but I know they think I ran out on her. I could’ve found a job of some kind around here.”

“And you would’ve been miserable, and you wouldn’t have been using your talents the way they were meant to be used,” Pepper returned gently. “I know you well enough to have an idea that your mom wouldn’t have wanted that for you. She’d be proud of what you’re doing.”

“Thanks, Pep…I wish she could’ve met y’all. You and Tony, at least. She would’ve liked you.” I sighed. “We put things off too long, don’t we? We always think there’s gonna be another day.”

She nodded, and we sat in companionable silence until Tony rambled over. “Avonelle’s gonna adopt me,” he declared. “That, or elope with me. She hasn’t decided yet.”

“Your charisma knows no bounds,” I retorted with a faint grin that he returned.

“You okay? I mean, you’re not, you know, crying, a lot.”

“She had dementia, Tony,” I reminded him. “I’d been saying goodbye to her for several years. This was just the last step. You know how they say, part of the journey is the end?” He nodded with a thoughtful air, then shocked me with a fond kiss on my cheek before he and Pep headed for their rental car to get back to the SI jet at the tiny regional airport, and back to work. Pep had a global conglomerate to run, and Tony, while semi-retired from Avenging, still took point on most administrative duties, equipment development, and maintenance, as well as helping me with the public face of the team. I watched them leave, and felt a tug, as if, instead of being left with my family, my family was leaving me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I could not resist the ass jokes. #sorrynotsorry LOLOL
> 
> Chrissy is channeling what I experienced a couple of months ago, when my mom passed. I hope it doesn't come off as too Mary Sue; it felt like a good way to tie up the plot thread of her mom, and weave in some themes, like loss and family, that play a big part in this part of our story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy is hauled back into her work world by a crisis. She takes wise counsel from great-aunt Avonelle, and has an unexpected encounter at the Nashville airport on her way back to the Tower.

I had to stay a few more days in Tennessee to finish getting affairs in order: order the grave marker, close Mom’s bank account, clean out her room at the nursing home, thank her caregivers. It was in that weird space, between active grieving and the time people start expecting you to return to normal life, that I flopped on Darlene’s couch after supper at her house a few nights after the funeral, in front of her TV with her kids. The two oldest were fighting over the remote, so I took it away from both of them and switched to a news channel. “There, y’all make up your minds what you want to see, while I catch up on what’s happening in the real world—”

What was going on in the real world was a first-rate clusterfuck in Lagos, Nigeria. I pulled out my StarkPhone Plus, projected a map of Africa in the air, and started to show my curious little cousins where Nigeria was. Then another image flashed onto the screen. It was the faces of the friends on a mission, Steve, Sam, Wanda, Pietro, and Nat. I dropped my phone on the floor and grabbed for the remote. “—incident reported while the Avengers were attempting to take a gang of mercenaries into custody. Several buildings were destroyed, scores of people were injured. Several members of a Wakandan outreach team were hospitalized; two are reported in extremely critical condition—”

“Shit,” I breathed.

Darlene’s youngest giggled. “Chrissy said shit, Chrissy said shit…” she singsonged.

“Yeah, Chrissy sure did.” Which was because Chrissy had some shit to deal with. I located my thankfully damn near indestructible phone and started texting.

After some pleading and pulling of strings, Jackson’s channel 7 did set up a satellite feed so I could hold a long-distance presser first thing in the morning. I think it was as much to get their small-town station a bit of reflected notoriety as anything. The feeling of getting into my sharp big-city business attire, getting my makeup just so, and everything I did as second nature at the tower or the compound before facing the press, felt insanely awry when I was doing it in my aunt’s tiny bathroom. 

The aunts, uncles and cousins, being who they are, were full of suggestions, from “I know you need to work since you ain’t got a husband, sweetie, but ain’t them Avengers assholes to work for?” to “get your nose out of her business, Irlene”.

Resolute, I blocked it all out, including the ranting of Darlene’s oldest boy Alfred as he drove me to the station. The instant I got out, I was overrun by reporters. The parking lot was stuffed with vans from stations as far away as Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, and farther afield. Alfie put his high school football skills to good use and opened a lane for me to push my way into the building and find the studio. Still half off balance, I managed to more or less pacify the commotion and call the event to order, both the press in the room and those Skyping in from major cities. “It’s clear from the media coverage I’ve seen that people are, as often happens, making judgements before knowing all the facts. Facts are what I am here to share. No,” I interrupted zealous locals trying to shout questions at me. “We do not shout. Please do me, and the Avengers who I proudly represent, the courtesy of listening as I present their statement and then answer your questions.

“Here’s the sequence of events as those on the scene report them. The Avengers were advised of a plot to steal chemical and biological weapons with the intent of using them for terrorist purposes. When the suspects were confronted, one of them attempted to detonate a suicide vest on his person. Two team members were in the process of removing him to a less populated area when the vest detonated. The explosion was extremely large, and escaped the containment area, resulting in property damage and injuries. Relief teams from the Maria Stark Foundation and other NGOs are on the ground now assisting.” They didn’t need to know that Wanda had enveloped the ex-HYDRA (also ex-SHIELD) merc in her powers while her brother raced in to move him out of town, but she had lost control, reflexively trying to shield Pietro, when the vest blew. 

As soon as I paused, the reporters began to yell questions again, challenging me on the Avengers’ training, capabilities, intentions, and right to travel the world chasing down criminals. I parried as best as I could, but the room was smaller than I was used to, the TV lights hotter, and it finally just got too much. “Excuse me, _excuse me_. Could—could you give me a second?” I talked myself through some breaths, acutely aware of the stares and grumbles. “I’m sorry, I buried my mother day before yesterday, which, for those of you on remote, is why I am not in the press room at Avengers Tower. This is not the best setup, I understand that, but it was important to the team that everyone be advised of what happened in Nigeria, and how sorry they are that people were hurt. The injuries, particularly the good folks from Wakanda volunteering their help to their neighbors, are not a good thing. However, if the chemical weapons had been stolen, if the suicide bomber had succeeded in detonating himself unimpeded, or worse yet, both had happened, we could be talking about hundreds or thousands of people blown up or breathing poison gas. What the Avengers do strikes a delicate balance. They do their best, and sometimes it has to be enough, and when it’s not…when it’s not, it still has to do, because more often than not, nobody could have done better."

The place calmed a little; honesty gets through to folks when nothing else will, sometimes. An older woman in a pantsuit and sensible shoes raised her hand down front. “After several incidents of the past few years involving the Avengers which resulted in wrecked buildings and physical harm, has it occurred to them they might need some—guidance, some oversight?”

“It has,” I replied. “In fact, for the past few months the team has been working on proposals for protocols that would establish an equilibrium between the need for flexibility and autonomy, and the need for responsibility.” Admittedly, I didn’t know that those exact words had ever been spoken in any of the sometimes heated discussions on the subject, but if not, it was high time somebody introduced them.

Once I had thrown enough red meat to the press, Alfie hustled me out and back to the house. I thanked him and told him if he ever wanted to move to the big city, Tony would happily hire him as SI security.

“Quit tryin’ to lure ever’body to the big city.” Great-Aunt Avonelle tooled into the spare bedroom while I packed my things, and sat down with a grunt on her walker’s seat. “The kinfolks always knowed you was different, but Alfie don’t even like to go with his brothers to Memphis of a Saturday night. He’d rather be fishin’.”

“Oh, I’m not trying, Auntie,” I returned. “Just sayin’, he did a good job. He got me where I needed to go and back, cleared the way, and kept his temper.”

“I expect that’s important. Them reporters are like locusts, just swarmin’ an’ relentless.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And that’s what makes you good at what they have you doin’, up there in New York City in the Avengers’ big ol’ tower. You can hold your temper.”

“Well, part of it, yes. The team—they all have their own powers and skills, but they've never worked in the media, they are not trained to deal with the media, and they wouldn’t be near as patient.”

“That’s what that Stark boy said,” She cocked her head to the side, sighed a little and smiled. “He’s a sharp one all right. Thinks the world of you too, and mighty easy on the eyes. I declare, if I’uz thirty year younger, I’d fight that fancy girlfriend of his.”

I giggled. “Pepper isn’t near as fancy as you might think, Auntie. Neither is Tony, or any of the Avengers for that matter. That’s one thing I keep working to get through to people, that underneath the skills and weapons and flash, they are all just folks.”

Auntie nodded sagely. “That’s good. You keep that up. When you get up in front of cameras all dressed like you done stepped outta Vogue, you remind folk of that. Remind them Avengers of that, too, so they don’t lose theirselves. And don’t you forget who you are, neither. When kin tried to talk you down, I always told ‘em you was gonna amount to way more than their pea brains could imagine.”

I held those thoughts in my mind as I navigated through Nashville International Airport to catch my flight back to New York. With all the uproar about the Avengers’ most recent actions, I refused to drag anybody away to come pick me up; a ride from Jackson with a cousin was easier to beg. I checked in, then pondered grabbing a snack on the concourse. “’Scuse me,” came a young male voice. With a mental sigh, I turned and found a teenage boy in obviously new jeans and button-down looking at me. “Are you the Avengers’ press lady?”

“Why, yes, I am. What can I do for you?” I threw up a quick prayer for him not to be a punk who wanted to bitch about how privileged and above it all my employers were.

“I just wanted to say hey. Name’s Harley Keener, I—”

“You’re Tony’s little friend! From Chattanooga! I recognize your name. Well, you aren’t so little now, obviously. How are you? Tony told me about you, and he mentions you on occasion when y’all talk. Where are you headed?”

“I, um, won an engineering competition, and they sent me to a national student techie conference. I just flew back in, and my bus home leaves in a few minutes. But I saw you and thought I ought to ask.”

We chatted briefly before he hauled his battered suitcase out to the curb to catch the bus. Harley’s mom was not well, and he was taking care of himself and his little sister most of the time. Both had insisted he take this trip he had earned, though. I wondered how much of that Tony knew; not much, I suspected, and when I got home to the tower, I planned to make a point of casually passing it on.

I walked back into the middle of a piping hot mess, to put it mildly. A vocal movement was rising to demand that enhanced heroes be held responsible for their deeds, and that a system be established for managing and organizing missions and activities. As nominally still a part of SHIELD, the Avengers had something to push back with, but for an increasing number of people around the world, that wasn’t enough. They asked for a worldwide and uniform structure, something to apply equally to anyone seeking to use special powers and abilities in the service of others. In short, the public was calling for exactly what Tony had seen coming almost a year ago, after the global chasedown of Ultron, the destruction of Novigrad, Sokovia, and the 60 Minutes interview of the team. It was, I reflected as I scheduled yet another presser to discuss the current issue, a damn good thing they had talked about it and gotten at least the bare bones of a plan together. 

Tony had suggested each Avenger develop a list of things they would like to see in such a proposal, things they could tolerate, and things that were deal-breakers. The team members based at the compound were coming into town with their lists, and they wanted me involved, as I was with many of their planning sessions that didn’t involve active duty missions, since I would present their status to the press.

It was the first time I had seen most of the team since Lagos. Sam was quiet, and Nat kept her usual cool front. I’d known them for several years, though, so I had an idea how sad they felt. Wanda and Pietro, younger and less seasoned, were more open with their emotions, and sat with their arms around each other. Steve sat silent in a corner, not looking at anyone. 

“I did not know about the explosive vest,” Wanda told me under her breath as I hugged her. “The HYDRA operative distracted Captain Rogers, and he didn’t tell me until it was about to blow. He blames himself, and he shouldn’t. I have better control than that. I was—it was Pietro, and I almost lost him in Novigrad, and…”

“It wasn’t your fault, _sestra_ ,” Pietro cut her off. “Accidents happen. It is bad, but it is life.”

“We aren’t gonna let anybody pin this on you, Wanda, or on Steve or anybody,” I promised her. “Tony’ll work over the notes everybody made, and we’ll all work together, and come up with something to reassure the public.” It wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to believe it was possible.

“It was Bucky,” Steve said flatly when I sat down beside him. “Rumlow mentioned him, and it threw me off my stride. All of a sudden I couldn’t think. I was that kid in Brooklyn again.” 

I took Steve’s hand. He was so worried about his friend, the man who had been like a brother to him when he had needed him most. Bucky Barnes had vanished without a trace since the last sighting of him helping evacuate civilians from the disaster in Sokovia, and in the depths of my own thoughts, I prayed he had made it off that flying rock alive. Steve was harder to soothe than Wanda, but I did my best. It sucked that the greater part of negotiating this quagmire was going to fall on Tony, but I intended to do everything humanly possible to assist. “I’ve got to get back to work, I’ll talk to y’all later.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper drafts Chrissy to help her with an emergency. Chrissy accompanies Tony to a public function, where she chats with an onlooker, is unexpectedly moved by Tony's presentation, and gets some unbelievable news.

I didn’t even make it to the elevator before my phone pinged. It was a text from Pepper asking me to swing by her office. She was bustling around gathering stuff. “Chrissy! I am in a jam. That two-week Asia trip I was supposed to leave for on Friday? We’ve had to reschedule and I have to go now. Tony’s got a presentation for his scholarship foundation at MIT later today; is there any way you could go with him? You can’t present, but you could introduce him. I just hate for him to have to go alone.”

“I…hang on, let me think through my commitments, Pep…yeah, I think so.” With a breathless word of thanks, Pep grabbed her briefcase and was out the door. I texted Tony, though I knew Pep likely had before she ever asked me to fill in. His reply was chipper as ever, but when I met him a few minutes later to take the SI jet to Boston, he looked tired and sad. “I realize I’m a poor substitute, hot rod, but I’ll do my best. Just tell me how many minutes I need to fill with fulsome praise of you.”

“As much as you can fabricate, cornbread,” he shot back, and spent the entire trip telling me about the scholarships he had endowed, and showing me the tech he planned to demonstrate. Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, it was called, BARF for short, for the moment at least. “I know, it needs a new name, but they’re college kids, they’ll snicker.”

I didn’t really understand what it was supposed to do, other than support visualization, which could have all kinds of uses, I supposed, but that didn’t matter. Once we arrived, Tony directed a team of workers to set up what looked a lot like a minimalist set for a one-act play, complete with a white baby grand piano. I found a stool out of their way and constructed a short introduction, which I bounced onto a stage a short time later to deliver. 

First I introduced myself and explained briefly how I knew the distinguished alumnus who was about to exhibit his latest scientific innovation. “People know Tony Stark today as much as Iron Man, defender of all that’s good and right, as much as for his constant pushing of the technological envelope. If they know both, they usually say that his true superpower is his brain, and they’re partly right. He isn’t super strong, or super fast, and he is super smart. Trust me, a big part of my job is to try to keep up with him.” Over the assembled students’ chuckles, I continued, “After knowing him for a number of years, though, I have decided that the thing that really makes him special, that sets him apart from everybody else I have ever met, is not his brain, but his heart. He gives, and he cares, and he tries to lift up everybody he comes into contact with. To that end, students and future superheroes, I am honored to introduce my friend, Tony Stark.”

I led applause, then stepped aside to see what BARF was all about. What it was, was a cross between a 3D movie and a hologram straight out of Star Wars. The figure of a pretty silver-haired woman appeared at the piano, and a couch shimmered into view behind her. Among the cushions, a young boy lay with a Santa hat pulled over his head. I glanced quickly to the wings where Tony stood perfectly still, wearing the weird glasses that projected the illusion. 

My curiosity about the scenario Tony was exhibiting vanished the next moment when another player appeared, one I recognized from photos: Howard Stark. The boy stood up, and Howard pulled off the hat and started to snipe at him. I barely managed to swallow a gasp when Tony’s voice replied in kind, from a face that could only be his but was so impossibly young. The shock kept me from catching much of what was said until the woman, who had to be Tony’s mom, told him this was the last time they would be together.

The auditorium sat in silence, riveted. Very carefully, I backed up until I knew I was out of their and Tony’s line of sight, then spun and tried not to run. Tears filled my eyes, and I didn’t know the labyrinth of backstage corridors, so it wasn’t at all surprising that within only a few seconds I stumbled over a bench and bumped hard into somebody else clearly watching the demo. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” I got out.

A hand landed on my shoulder, small and gentle but firm. “Are you all right?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yes, I’m okay. It’s just…” I waved a hand behind me toward the staging area, my words for once inadequate to the demands I made of them. “Tony is my friend, and it kills me to know he’s hurting.” I cleared my eyes enough to see the other person, a pleasant-faced older African-American lady who looked puzzled. “The presentation—he’s showing them the last time he saw his mom and dad before they were killed.”

Her bemused frown deepened. “I always heard Howard Stark and his wife died in a car wreck.”

“They did, but the…circumstances surrounding the accident have always been sketchy. When the files from the HYDRA criminals who infiltrated our intelligence agencies were exposed by the Avengers, they contained some indication of interest in the Starks’ deaths. That kind of vagueness, not a yes but not quite a no, just makes matters worse for the ones left behind.” I put all the sincerity I could muster behind the statement. Ending it with a totally unpremeditated sniffle didn’t hurt. “If you’re a journalist, you might be able to dig up more. I can’t say anything else, though. Now if you are a HYDRA agent, I will go down kicking your butt, just so we’re clear.”

The woman chuckled. “Oh, I’m anything but an evil spy. Just a person wanting to see justice done.”

“Join the club,” I replied and managed a small smile. “Getting people to treat each other fairly is a struggle at the best of times.” I glanced back toward the stage where the BARF apparitions had vanished and Tony was now speaking to the gathered students. ”Sometimes getting people to treat themselves fairly is even harder.”

She was sharp, this woman was; I could tell from the tilt of her head she had noted where my eyes went. “You’re the girl from TV, the Avengers’ press secretary.”

“As good a term as any,” I agreed and introduced myself.

“Miriam Sharpe,” she returned. “Doesn’t it bother you? Having to make excuses for them.”

 _No, what bothers me is having to throw my professional face on when I’m upset, lady,_ I thought in irritation. “I don’t make ‘excuses’, ma’am. Working as closely with the team as I do, I know how difficult the decisions they have to make are. I know how hard they work, how much they care, and how they hurt when things don’t go as planned, which, unfortunately, is an element of human nature. What I just said about getting people to treat each other fairly? That is my job, getting people to treat the Avengers fairly, and no, it does not bother me.” A healthy round of applause drew my attention. “Sounds like my cue. I hope that helps you to understand better. It was nice talking to you, and thank you for asking after me.” I really wanted to tell her to check herself, but as the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and being nasty to argumentative civilians never ended well (unless you were Steve Rogers raising cain with bigots on Twitter, and that, as my college roommate from Florida used to say, was a whole ‘nother bag of squid). As I turned to meet Tony, I thought great-aunt Avonelle would be proud of me.

My momentary buoyancy was punctured as Tony drew closer. A couple of people, who looked to be MIT staff, were babbling at him, but he clearly wasn’t hearing a word. His eyes were a thousand miles away. Suddenly, I was reminded of the morning eight years ago when he had come home from Afghanistan, the way he had looked at me and every reporter in that press conference and yet seemed to be seeing something else altogether. “Tony. Hey.” I stepped up and put my hands on his chest; he halted, blinked rapidly (and shit, were those tears he was blinking away?) and then, thank heavens, he focused on me. “Tony, you’re shaking. C’mere, sit!” I shooed the apologetic assistant and some officious guy away and led Tony around to the bench near where I had been standing. Miriam Sharpe was nowhere to be seen. I sat down and tugged him down beside me. “That was amazing, but Tony, what possessed you to—to throw all that out there, and get yourself all upset? Yes, being open is great, but you don’t have to rip your heart out and hand it to the world. There are people out there who’d take it and then bitch that you’re dripping blood all over their clean floor, you know.”

“Lovely mental image, Everhart, thank you for that.” He gave a breathy little laugh. “The public handled it pretty well, when I spilled about my anxiety. Dr. Rausch said she was really proud of me. She thought it was braver than anything I’d ever done in the suit. So I just—thought laying it out this way, for these kids who are about the age I was when it happened, maybe that would help them relate, you know?” I nodded. “It’s great being in a position to do this for them, it’ll be great for the world going forward too. Granted, making their student debts go away and funding their researtch, as laudable a goal as it is, isn’t going to make up for the stuff I’ve fucked up, Nothing’s gonna do that.”

“I’ll invoke Dr. Rausch again, and remind you the whole world does not rest on your shoulders, as strong and capable as they may be.” Suiting action to word, I squeezed them firmly. “I’m proud of you too, hot rod. Somebody was recording that, I hope. Pepper’s gonna hate that she missed it.”

His shoulders twitched under my hands, and his face fell again. “Yeah, well, maybe, maybe not. Pep’s—she’s—we’re—taking a break, she calls it. First crack in a break-off, if I had to make a semi-educated guess. That’s why she asked you to come handle me here, on such short notice they didn’t even know to change the autocue and take my introduction of her out of my speech. Probably why she took off for scenic Southeast Asia early, truth be told; it was a good face-saving justification for not coming.”

“Uh, what?” I demanded. “Tony, that’s not true at all! She hated to have to leave; it wasn’t anything she planned. And she didn’t say a thing to me about taking any ‘break’ from you or your relationship. In case you hadn’t noticed, one doesn’t just ‘take a break’ from loving somebody.” 

The little sniff that replied was a tell of his I knew well, a sign he was uneasy or troubled. “She wouldn’t have said anything to you, cornbread, not now. She knows you cluck and scratch around me sometimes.”

“Well, right now, I’m about to…” I pulled myself up short, abruptly torn. I wanted to help, more than anything, but I couldn’t fix everything for everybody I cared about. Their interactions, interpretation, and decisions were not for me to make, as much as I thought I knew the truth. I had gotten too accustomed, perhaps, to jumping out in front of every crisis large or small. And yes, I knew it drove Tony nuts when I went all mother-hen.

Tony kept talking, paying no heed to my hesitation. “For all I know, hell, she may meet some crazy-rich Asian guy and decide she isn’t even coming back—”

“Excuse me, Mister Stark. Let’s review some basic facts of the case here. How long have I known you two? Oh, that’s right, almost eight freaking years. When did I, reporter with no special talent other than nose trouble, know you were in love? Three minutes after I met Pepper, in her case, and the first damn time I saw you two together, in yours. Now in won’t pretend to know exactly what is going on here, but she will be back. She’ll be back, bringing a new green-energy deal for SI, and some weird exotic candy for Clint’s sweet tooth, and a teeny icon or two for Nat’s collection; and for you, herself. You will get this straight, I guaran-damn-tee it.”

It was heart-rending to see the way he forced a small smile onto his face when he looked up at me. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Hell no. The day the Chitauri attacked, when I was on the SI jet with Pep, she wanted to turn around and get back here for you, but didn’t want to inconvenience me—hah. I told her I was on that train with her till it ran out of track. If you think for one minute the same doesn’t apply to you, you don’t have the sense I always gave you credit for having.”

After a long moment, Tony finally said, “You always did give me too much credit.” I failed to stifle a snort of laughter, and hugged him to cover it. He sighed a little and slid his arms around my waist to return it. “C’mon, let’s see if Legal Seafood can find a corner to stick us in for lunch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Tony's 'crazy-rich Asian' comment refers to the book series on which the movie was based--the first one was published in 2014 so was well known by this point in the timeline.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miriam Sharpe returns with some words for Tony. He takes them to the team's next meeting about prospective oversight, where an unexpected visitor invites himself in.

We walked around a corner to the elevator, and found the woman I had spoken with earlier standing waiting. “That was nice,” she said to Tony, “what you did for those young people.”

Tony shrugged on his public face like putting on an old jacket. “Ah, they deserve it. Plus, it helps ease my conscience.”

I groaned out loud. “Exhibit A,” I said to her, pointing to Tony, “of what I was saying earlier about how sometimes getting people to treat themselves fairly is the hardest. Everybody has their regrets, Tony, but everybody doesn’t share them in hopes of helping other people and making the world a better place.”

“Well,” the woman said thoughtfully, “they say there's a correlation between generosity and guilt.”

“Forgive me for not buying that. Not as a universal constant, anyway,” I disagreed. “It applies to some folks, I know that for a fact, but not to all, which I also know to be a fact.” My instincts were always to make the best impression for the Avengers with the general public, but I couldn’t help the fact that I was even more forceful about doing that for Tony. 

“I believe that,” she nodded. 

Tony punched the elevator control. “Going up?” he asked her.

“Actually, I’m right where I want to be,” she replied and started to reach into her purse. Tony tensed and his right hand went to his left wrist, where I knew the watch he wore was actually a prototype mini-repulsor gauntlet. I stepped around and set one foot forward, ready to dive and tackle if need be; the ‘derringer’ as he called it only had two good blasts in it. Tony’s elbow moved in front of me, trying to block me, until I pushed his arm back toward him. He resisted, I refused to relent, and when the woman looked up with her billfold in her hand, she saw us all but scuffling.

Her eyebrow went up in a move that would have fit right in with our team mock-scraps. “He’s trying to be all protective and push me behind him in case you pull an AK-47 out of your pocketbook,” I said bluntly.

“And if I did?” she inquired, still with that interested look.

“Wouldn’t try to hurt you,” Tony pledged. “Just jar it loose and bounce you off that very bland wall.”

“After we got through arguing over who was going to take a bullet for who,” I added. Tony glared at me, and I put my hands on my hips and returned the favor. “What? I’m right, admit it.”

“Moot point anyway,” he pointed out, “since if she had wanted to ventilate either of us, she’s had more than ample time to empty a couple of clips while we stood here bickering like Donny and Marie.” He looked back at the woman. “Sorry. Slight paranoia is kind of an occupational hazard.”

“I understand. I work for the State Department. Human Resources. I know it sounds boring, but it let me raise a son. I'm very proud of what he grew up to be.”

From the billfold she drew a photo and held it out. Standing where I was, it was natural for me to reach out and take it, since I knew Tony wouldn’t, and trying to explain that was another layer of subtext I didn’t want to get into. A pleasant-faced young man beamed from the picture. I tipped it so Tony could see it, and smiled at his mother. “I’ve got a friend in HR, and a lot of her days sound anything but boring. Sounds like you have a lot to be proud of.”

She tried to smile back, but didn’t quite succeed. “Had,” she corrected me quietly. “Charlie died in Sokovia.”

Tony’s hand, moving to take the photo from me, froze in mid-air. “I…I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes suddenly big and wounded. “We didn’t know any Americans were killed. We did our best to keep anybody from being hurt, but—”

“There was only so much anybody could do,” she replied evenly. “I’ve heard it, I know it. My son was a grown-up, he chose to go where he did and do what he did. When things went south over there, the NGO he was working with started evacuating the volunteers. He and a few others chose to stay and try to help the locals.” She smiled a little. “I didn’t intend to eavesdrop just now, Mr. Stark, but I did hear what you and your friend were saying, and it struck me all of a sudden, how much you and Charlie had in common, putting yourselves in harm’s way to do for others. A part of me wanted to blame somebody, and for a while that somebody was you, but…Charlie admired you so much. He dreamed of one day working for your company. And thinking about what I’ve seen of you talking on TV, and what I just saw and heard here, it wasn’t right to take my hurt out on you.”

Tony’s mouth twisted in a half-smile. “I don’t have kids, may never, but I can understand the blame part. I wish I had somebody to blame for what happened to my parents, besides—” He cut off, but Miriam Sharpe held his gaze with her steady dark eyes. “I blamed my dad, for a very long time,” he finally said, very quietly.

Miriam just nodded. “I’ve heard there might be more to that, but insinuations don’t give you names or faces to pin your pain to, do they?”

“Any faces behind that are long gone too,” Tony said. “Water over the dam, under the bridge, whatever.” 

Something passed between them in a moment of silence, something I felt to my gut that the Tony Stark I knew back when, as good as his heart was, might not have been able to take and give back. I kept half expecting him to start beating himself up with guilt, but thank heavens (and therapy, and years surrounded by friends who cared for him and called him on his self-hating bullshit) it didn’t happen. “Will you tell us about your son, Mrs. Sharpe?” I asked gently.

She sat back down on the bench where we had been and told us about Charlie—Charlie Spencer; she’d taken her last name back after she and his dad got divorced. He had just earned his degree in computer engineering and had landed a great job. Before he settled down, though, he wanted to see a little more of the world than he had, and maybe help some people along the way. So, he volunteered to build sustainable housing for families in need, and ended up in Sokovia when Novigrad went for a ride and exploded in mid-air. Tony listened with that focus I had come to know so well. “Is…oh damn, this sounds awful. I’m not good with…can we help? Can _I_ help, Miriam? With, I don’t know, paying for the arrangements, or his student loans, or—I know this really good therapist, I can put a word in for you.”

Miriam actually chuckled again, just a little, and patted Tony’s hand. “Somehow, the image of Tony Stark, smartass rich boy playing superhero, is still floating around out there. I wish more people could meet you. After seeing that presentation you just gave—that was amazing, how you opened up your heart and shared your own struggles with those kids to encourage them. You fight so hard for others, sounds to me like you need to fight for yourself more.”

Tony snorted. “The offer stands, Miriam. Here, take my card. I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to throw money at you, I swear, I’m not.”

“I know. I can tell.”

He looked away for an instant, then back at her. “We’re working on ways to protect civilians even more going forward. Could I scan this picture? I’d like to share Charlie with the other Avengers, the way you shared him with us. I think it’ll help motivate them. He won’t have died in vain. Cold comfort, I know.”

“He’d like that, though. You keep that photo; I have more.” We stood and walked back toward the elevators. “I’m parked out that way.” 

“It was an honor to meet you.” Tony put his hand out, but instead of shaking, Miriam moved forward to hug him. He went stiff, then mumbled, “Sorry, I’m not so good with physical shows of affection either. My parents weren’t much on that. I’m working on it.”

“You’re doing fine,” she said and patted his cheek. “Keep it up. Goodbye to you too, Miss Everhart. Everyone should have a friend as fine for them as you are for him.”

+++

I kept talking to reporters, holding press conferences, setting up photo ops, and in general doing everything I could think of to drive home the theme: the Avengers were people, they were on the side of the people of earth, and they were doing everything humanly possible to protect against imminent threats. While the team handled their own missions, this was my personal mission. I got Sam and Rhodey on reddit for a joint Ask Me Anything, hooked Clint up with an online archery club for some virtual tutoring, and accompanied Tony to a first responders’ benefit. It was another event Pepper would normally have attended with him, but the whirl of media needs kept me from calling to corner her about whatever the hell was going on with them. Tony just shrugged and said he hadn’t mentioned it to her before she left the country.

The week after the MIT presentation, the team planned to get together and finish hashing out their differences of opinion about external oversight of their activities. Since right now Tony and I were literally the only members of the Avengers Initiative (yes, they finally got me to state out loud that I was a ‘member’. Sue me.) staying at the tower, the meeting was planned for the compound. Tony was called out of the tower at the last minute, so I rode up alone. 

Wanda and Pietro were having another bout of cabin fever; with much of the negative talk about the team centering on the Nigerian calamity, Tony had suggested it was best if they lay low for a while. At least this time, unlike their confinement to the SHIELD safe house, they could get out more often. Wanda’s training with Strange had ended, but she was helping him with research, and studying spells on her own, so he portaled her back and forth to the Sanctum, and Pietro often tagged along so Tony could sneak him over to the tower to help with science-y things. Plus, the other Avengers were constantly coming and going, and Wanda had Vision nearby. Pietro didn’t quite know what to make of his sister losing her heart to an android, but as he said, if Vision hurt her, he had the know-how to dismantle him, or pull a few fuses anyway. (He didn’t, but I felt sure he would try.)

I was almost choking on laughter as Wanda recounted some of her adventures in trying to teach Vision to cook, when a familiar pressure announced itself in my head, my still-unexplained perception of the Mind Stone he bore. “Vision’s coming,” I said just before he phased through the wall. Wanda gave him a good-natured reprimand.

“Miss Everhart did say she wanted to know when Mr. Stark arrived,” Vision said with a nod toward me. “He has also brought a visitor.”

A visitor? For an Avengers team meeting? “Who is it?” Wanda asked with a frown that said she was thinking along the same puzzled lines as I was.

“General Thaddeus Ross, the US Secretary of State.”

Boy, was this going to be a fun meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hee. Anybody see that coming? :) One of my many problems with Civil War was the unbalanced reactions to Sokovia. Every character negatively affected by the battle lost their minds over it to some extent. It just did not seem to me that in this verse, where Tony has been so much more open about who he really is, Miriam Sharpe would say the same hateful and hurtful things and blame him personally for her son's death. She's right in here, if you look at it; for all Tony's posturing about how self-centered he is, he's every bit as willing to help lift other people up as Charlie was, and in a world where people knew he was doing that, it couldn't go down the way it did in canon, I believe. Also, in the original Civil War comic, the boy Charlie was based on was younger and a fan of Iron Man, and his mother did not come down so hard on Tony; so my take is partly an homage to that. (fun fact: the character of Charlie was named after Charlie Chaplin, who RDJ played in the definitive movie about his life and scored his first Oscar nomination for.)
> 
> Next chapter, the meeting with Ross, which also goes very differently than in canon...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thaddeus Ross gives the Avengers a document and an ultimatum. The team discusses.

Thaddeus Ross looked every inch an old military guy: ramrod straight posture, perfectly groomed and sharply dressed. His vibe matched it; the instant he walked into the compound’s main meeting room, he took up a position and started to declaim like a CO issuing orders. I’d interviewed enough of them to know, and Sam and Rhodey kept exchanging knowing glances across the long table, so they had twigged to it as well. He pontificated about his heart attack giving him a new outlook, which he demonstrated by showing footage of damage caused by the Avengers’ missions and claiming they exhibited no concern for those left behind. 

“So apparently, Mr. Secretary, sending in relief teams almost before we’ve cleared a country’s airspace, working with local authorities and NGOs to clean up the messes made by apprehending international fugitives, those are exhibitions of ‘no concern’?” Nat’s tone was so saccharine I could have dumped it in Tony’s coffee and made him run screaming.

“Speaking of working with NGOs,” Tony added, “I have a question for you.” He laid his phone on the table and tapped it, and the image of Charlie Spencer was projected for all to see. Tony briefly recounted what his mom had told us in Boston. “Great kid, smart kid, wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn't go to Vegas or Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He went to Sokovia to help out, and he died there while we were trying to kick Ultron’s ass.” Wanda visibly winced, and Vision laid his hand over hers. “Now, unless work assignments have been changed, it’s the State Department’s responsibility to keep up with American citizens who die overseas. In this case, we should have been notified, since his death was—was an indirect result of our actions. Who dropped the ball, Ross?”

“Maybe I didn’t think you would care, Stark.”

Tony stiffened. “You know how I feel about innocents getting caught in crossfire, and you expect me to buy this shit sandwich you’re selling?”

Ross just smirked, and I saw red. That was the very thing that years ago had led me to surmise the mysterious ‘Iron Man’ was actually Tony Stark: his dogged resolve to protect civilians, even at the risk of his own life. “With all _due_ respect (I put the faintest emphasis, just enough to make it clear I thought him due no respect at all), sir, even if you didn’t think they cared, they can’t function without information; they can’t be of any help after incidents if they don’t know where the help is needed.”

He paused, not looking at me, then went on as though I hadn’t even spoken. “For several years now, the Avengers have operated with unlimited power and no supervision. The governments of the world can no longer tolerate—”

“Um, General?” I spoke up again. “Since I’m taking minutes here (I wasn’t, but how the heck was he going to know that), could you answer my question and finish off that line of discussion before you move on to something else? Just for clarity in the record, you understand.”

Rhodey was doing his patented ‘let me cover my mouth and look like I’m in deep thought, so nobody sees I’m about to crack up’ face. I studiously avoided looking at him. Ross rounded on me. “I don’t even know why you’re in here, young lady. The Avengers need to be reined in and put under supervision. There’s no way a PR hack can change that.”

I cocked my head to convey an air of benign perplexity. “No, there isn’t, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

Pietro turned an obvious snicker into a cough. Steve stared at his lap, but I could see the corner of his mouth fighting not to turn up. Ross finally looked at me, with a glare that had probably skewered a few hapless soldiers in the day. I was unmoved, and after a beat, he cleared his throat and didn’t try any more snark. That was the first wise move he’d made; Tony was already hot under the collar. From an oversized briefcase, Ross pulled a huge stack of paper, spiral-bound at Kinkos from the look of it, and dropped it on the table with a dull thud. Wanda reached out for it with all the caution of a snake-handler, then passed it to Rhodey. “The Sokovia Accords,” he declared. “Approved by 117 countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.” Well, that wasn’t going to fly, for any number of reasons I could think of at the drop of a baseball cap. 

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place,” Steve argued, ”and I feel we've done that.” 

“Tell me, Captain,” Ross countered, “do you know where Thor and Banner are right now? If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there'd be consequences.”

“Nukes don’t have free agency,” Sam muttered. “Sir.”

“Actually,” I chirped, “Prince Thor and his brother are on an intelligence-gathering mission regarding extraterrestrial threat, and Dr. Banner is on a sabbatical to do some advanced research. Details on both those are of course classified, so I know the team will appreciate your discretion.” I added a mental bless your heart with the most negative possible connotation, and a helpful smile.

Ross’ face was starting to turn red. “Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.”

“Three days?” Rhodey finally got past the giggles and into outrage. “No offense sir, but look at the size of that thing. You couldn’t have given us more than 72 hours with it?” 

Ross managed not to smirk this time. “It is what it is. Look the document over. Talk it over.”

“And if we come to a decision you don't like? “ Nat inquired in that same fake-sugary voice.

“Then you retire,” Ross said stoutly. Nat fought back a disbelieving snicker.

“Good thing we’ve been working on our own concept for oversight guidelines the past few months, isn’t it?” Tony asked the table at large. A chorus of _mm-hm_ and _that’s right_ answered him. Ross’ eyes widened and his face got even ruddier. “We know what we need, Ross. You don’t. Expecting us to bark along like your little pack of shih tzus, when we weren’t even consulted? That’s a hard no.”

“Sign or retire isn’t an option either,” Steve added. “Without a technological way to protect the earth, it has to be people. It has to be heroes. We have solid intel on at least one confirmed threat in space with eyes on earth. If you force badly planned restrictions on us, we can’t be ready to defend against outside attack. You know about the treaty negotiations with Asgard—your diplomats went on that mission. The whole point of that was to get us some help.”

“Yeah, I’m not sold on that story either,” Ross shocked the room by saying casually. “How do I know such a threat exists? For all I know, your pal and his enemy-combatant brother—”

“Who was tortured and brainwashed into cooperating,” Nat snapped; her patience was wearing noticeably thin.

“Brainwashed! Interesting you invoke that, Agent Romanoff, because you and your cronies could very well have planted some false memories in my people to further your ass-covering agenda. If I had been Secretary at the time, I definitely wouldn’t have sent personnel God knows where to waste their valuable time on a wild goose chase. Once the Accords are settled, I’m putting out feelers to talk to the UN and our Congress about cancelling the ‘treaty’.”

The room was dead silent, stunned, as Ross took his leave. “Son of a bitch,” Tony muttered.

“Can he cancel this treaty?” Pietro asked, his eyes big with concern. “The people of Thor are the only ones who stretched out their hands to help us against this Thanos.”

“Not any time soon he can’t; but right now, what we have on our plates is enough.” Tony leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “Let’s get this Accords thing boxed up and shipped off first.”

“Ross wants y’all under his thumb,” I said. “He doesn’t like you, I don’t know why, but it was obvious.”

“He doesn’t like Bruce,” Tony replied. “Bruce…was dating Ross’ daughter when his accident happened. She got hurt, Ross blames him; why he laid low and moved around a lot.” I remembered first getting to know Bruce, and thinking he came across as someone who had spent time on the lam. “I think he’s setting us up to fail because of that—his vendetta has expanded to include all of us. He wants the time pressure and rush to make us not think clearly, dig in our heels, turn on each other maybe. He liked the concept of the Avengers, initially, but since we haven’t danced to the military’s tune, he fell out of love pretty quickly. He definitely doesn’t like me. Can’t imagine why, what’s not to love here?”

Steve nodded. “Maybe he’s jealous. Who wouldn’t be? Genius, billionaire, philanthropist, superhero; not playboy anymore, I know that much.” Tony had managed a small version of his PR smile, but grimaced at the end. I would have wagered he hadn’t told another soul on the team about the ‘break’ between him and Pepper.

“You may be right on the money about him having it in for the team though, Tony,” I went on. “I’d bet he knew full well he was supposed to notify you about Charlie Spencer, and kept it from you on purpose, so maybe he could use your lack of action later as ammo for his smear campaign—and yeah, that’s what it is, a deliberate smear campaign.”

The team began to debate the pros and cons of the legislation, and of oversight in general. Vision picked up the volume and flipped through it. “You said something the size of an encyclopedia volume might land on us one day,” Steve said ruefully to Tony, who had walked over to the couch in the meeting room and lain down with his hand over his face.

Tony grunted. “Sometimes I hate being right. The shit is strong with this one. If I can just get my head to stop pounding and start tackling the dead-tree edition of Ross’ hit list—”

“it’s way too big for anybody to read in three days,” Steve complained. “Except you, Tony.” His grin took any sting out of the words. Tony shrugged and spread his hands with his usual smirk.

“Actually,” Vision noted in his mild way, “I have already read the entire document. Twice.”

Chuckles all around answered. “Good, Vis, you can be our Alexa.” Tony sat up with another grunt. 

I slipped out of my seat, located some Tylenol, and went to the sink on the kitchenette side of the big space, to get a glass of water. “Who dumped coffee grounds in the garbage disposal? Y’all, even I know better than that,” I said while I handed Tony the pills and water.

“Are we running a B&B for a biker gang?” he demanded in mock outrage before downing my offering. “Thanks, cornbread. Okay, let’s start whipping this thing into shape.”

“The first thing to decide is whether we _can_ whip it into shape,” Steve answered. “If we accept these controls, are we just shifting the responsibility for our actions? I know this is the UN,” he held up a hand when Rhodey started to protest, “and I know, that’s supposed to be a big deal. But remember, it wasn’t around in my day, and the League of Nations was pretty much a crapshoot as far as how well or badly it did anything. Any organization like that is run by people, with agendas, and their agendas change. I just think the best hands are our own.”

Tony’s flinch was barely noticeable, but I caught it and wondered where it came from. “I’ve heard that line before,” he countered, “from people who only wanted power. I know you don’t mean that, and everybody in this room knows it too, but it’s not gonna sound like that to the public we’re supposed to be protecting. I don’t see that there’s a decision-making process on whether or not; I think the decisions are on what form the controls should take.”

“You feel like we know best what we need, Steve,” Rhodey added, “and yeah, you’re right, but for that very reason, we can’t be arrogant enough to think scores of countries don’t know what they need. Like Tony said, that isn’t our intent and we know it isn’t, but it’s going to come across that way, and make us even less trusted in the international community. It’s only right to give props to others and consider how our words are perceived.”

“I have to agree with that,” I nodded to Rhodey. “From spending time back in Tennessee, I know how negatively the less educated public in particular will perceive resistance to some degree of oversight, and how it can be spun by those who distrust the Avengers anyway.”

“But how long before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?” Sam argued. “Slap a tracker on us so they know where we are and what we’re doing?”

“That’s why we’ve been making our own Christmukkah lists for this thing,” Tony returned, with a playful glance toward Wanda and Pietro. “Whatever’s in that brick there, these accords are a starting point, nothing more, and we will not agree to sign on to something we don’t have input into. There’ll be a lot of negotiation—I know that, I’ve spent my whole life working on contracts like this with governmental entities. The thing you start with is never the thing you end up with. Steve said the best hands are our own. Well yeah, we trust our hands, and each other’s, but what about down the road, years, decades from now, powered people we don’t even know, can the nations trust them? Can we abdicate the responsibility we have to leave a legacy of safety for civilians and future heroes, people like this spider-kid I’m trying to track down? I don’t think we can. I don’t think your conscience would let you do that, Cap. You always said you couldn’t walk away from a fight, and that’s what we’ve got now: a fight for now and for the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the debate is going better so far...#AvengersUseTheirWords
> 
> (insert cliffhanger music here. DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team debates how to proceed on the Sokovia Accords, and come to a consensus, before Steve gets an unwelcome message.

Steve didn’t look convinced, but he was listening intently to Tony. “It’s just that, after what happened with SHIELD, I’m…really afraid of letting faceless entities have too much control. If we sign this, won’t we surrender our right to choose? What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us?”

“That’d be where negotiation comes in,” Nat spoke up. “This,” she laid her hand on the volume as if she were swearing an oath on it, “is a WIP, a work in progress. I'm reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back. As I’m seeing it, it’s a choice between getting hold of the process and shaping it to suit our needs, or refusing to take part and letting others do it. It’s never going to be just our hands, but if we don’t get on board now, it won’t be in our hands at all.”

Tony gaped. “I'm sorry, did I just mishear you or did you agree with me?”

“Oh, I want to take it back now,” Nat said with a cheeky little grin.

“No, no, no. You can't retract it! Thank you. Unprecedented.” I lifted a quick silent prayer of thanks that despite their differences of opinion, the team was working together, listening to each other and understanding where the others were coming from, not at cross purposes. “I’ll even get Pep involved—” He faltered, and I knew then that he hadn’t said anything to the others about the ‘break’ she had supposedly taken from him. But, it was out there, he had said it, so he manned up. “As soon as she gets back next week, we’ll pull her in. Nobody can read a contract and parse it and see the options better than her. Just know that, this is how these things work.”

“This man Ross, he wanted to place blame.” Wanda’s face was grave, and she fidgeted with a little ball of her power, red and glowy. I could sense it, like a faint crackle of a campfire. “He wants to come after anyone who makes a mistake, like me, and Pietro.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Sam said firmly. “He wants us to give up our rights, for the sake of others? That’s not right.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed, “and when I talk about it to the media, that’s one thing I’m going to hit hard. I know I don’t have a dog in this hunt, not being a hero, but if you don’t mind hearing an outside opinion…” I paused, and both Steve and Tony nodded. “You’re both right. Freedom and flexibility are vitally important, Steve, but so is—”

“Accountability,” Steve burst out, looking at Tony. “That press conference, when you came back from Afghanistan. Chrissy showed it to me. I remember what you said. You spent your life being manipulated by a business that answered to no one, and you didn’t realize it. Of course you feel the need to be held responsible, far more than most people would.”

Tony blinked, his expression showing his surprise. “Uh, yeah, maybe. Listen to you getting all psychoanalytic on me, Cap. You probably know what I said that day better than I do. Hell, Chrissy was sitting a foot away from me, or so she says, and I don’t even remember seeing her.” Steve glanced at me, and I could almost hear what he was thinking, could see a shadow of the horror that had flooded his face the night we had watched that video, the way he had instantly recognized the shell shock in Tony’s eyes. “And you’re used to a soldier’s frame of mind, I know," Tony went on, "where some—collateral damage is acceptable. We aren’t soldiers, though, and this isn’t war. We have to put all the safeguards in place that we can come up with to keep civilians safe.”

“One thing I’m thinking,” Sam said after a moment, speaking slowly, as if piecing his thoughts together, “is you guys, us newbies too I guess, already have a tie to a government agency. On paper at least, Nat, you’re still an agent of SHIELD, right? Steve is too, and, well, I dunno what the hell Tony is.” Tony covered a snort with his hand. Technically, since I had scolded Fury into changing his status, he probably was considered an agent! “Bruce, whenever he comes back from going walkabout, he’s a consultant, so, still connected. Thor’s got diplomatic immunity, officially, I imagine.”

Rhodey picked up on Sam’s direction and continued. “I’m still active duty military. Sam, we gotta get your status legit. The twins are, what, kind of wards of the Avengers? Does that make us all your foster parents?” That finally coaxed a smile out of Wanda. “Put all that together, it gives us all a certain amount of due process protection. We aren’t gonna be made an example of.”

Steve sighed, and looked like he was about to say something, but was silent for a long moment. “I can’t help thinking about Bucky. He’s out there someplace, I don’t know what he’s doing, or what he knows, or even if he knows who he is. These accords—authorities would try to apply them to him, to punish him for what HYDRA made him do—”

“Like hell they will,” Tony snapped. “As far as we can tell, Barnes didn’t do anything illegal of his own free will. The accords won’t actually apply to him. JARVIS is still scanning every red-light camera, Ring, and Nest between here and Novosibirsk. We’re gonna find him, we’ll make damn sure he’s safe, and we’ll get him the help he’s gonna need after all the shit he’s been through. I understand as much as anybody could, I suppose, what you’re doing, looking for him like you are. I’d’ve done it for Rhodey. Hell, Rhodey did it for me.” I exchanged a smile with Rhodey, remembering how, long past when everybody gave up hope Tony was still alive in Afghanistan, he had refused to. “You act like you think every time things get tough I’m gonna hang you out to dry, Rogers!”

“No!” Steve protested. “I don’t mean that, Tony. We trusted you to negotiate in Asgard for the whole of planet earth. I’d trust you to negotiate anything, in any situation, and this most of all.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. We sign, as a team. We fight for each other, as a team. We stipulate this is a work in progress, and we reserve the right to drop our support if our input is not accepted.”

Vision had been quiet, rereading the document, but he spoke up now. “If the freedoms of the empowered are as honored as the wellbeing of the people on the streets, then this seems wise. I would add that I have an equation that might be relevant here.” 

“Oh, this will clear it up,” Sam muttered with tongue firmly in cheek. Rhodey elbowed him. 

“In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man,” Vision went on, “the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. During the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate. I’m not saying it is our fault. I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe. Oversight… oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“Whew,” Tony said after a long silence. “Thanks. Better we get that tidbit dropped on us here and now, than thrown in our faces like a dead trout, in a public forum. And that would happen, you know it would.” This time he was the one who sighed. “I keep coming back to, if we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys. Law enforcement works within bounds, and yeah, we’re different, but not that different. We need some checks, and I think this is the best way to satisfy that, and have some control over the form they take. So, we agreed?”

“Still not happy about it,” Steve said honestly, “but you’re right, it beats the alternative.”

Heads nodded around the table. Wanda looked uncertain, but the team assured her they had her back. “Don’t stress, Sabrina. We won’t let you and the Flash take a fall for us,” Tony promised. “You two probably need to stay on the down-low for a while longer, though. I know, it sucks, but staying out of the public eye, not going on the next few team callouts, is probably safer for all involved. Even if it wasn’t a matter of public perception, there’s your safety to consider, plus paparazzi chasing you around. We can always explain by saying, more training, right, Chrissy?”

“I’ll make a note to mention it in the presser, although I don’t know that I’ll bring it up unless somebody asks,” I agreed, furiously making notes on my StarkPad. “If you don’t mind a suggestion: as these accords are being worked into acceptable shape, I think they need to include explicit provisions to protect powered persons from being made scapegoats when things go pear-shaped in the future.”

“Definitely.” Tony rooted around in the battered briefcase he’d brought with him, and pulled out a small leather case. Flipped open, it revealed a gorgeous vintage pen and pencil set, silvery chrome and cocoa brown. “Dug these out of dad’s archive. They felt—timely. Only thing in this building older than Cap.” Steve rolled his eyes, with an indulgent smile. “And he had them back when you two were wreaking havoc, so I thought you might remember them.”

That snapped Steve’s attention back, and he turned with a look of pleased surprise. “I do remember these. Howard loved to brag how this was the only set in this color in private hands at that time.”

“Sounds like him,” Tony snorted. “Vision, can you transfer the accord doc to FRIDAY? That way we can all access it on laptop or tablet. Ross said three days, so that gives us at least tonight and tomorrow to go over as much as we can before we affix provisional signatures to the fucking thing. Everybody want to tackle it at once, or should we divvy it up like pizza and each take a slice?” 

Amid the usual post-meeting chaos, I downloaded the doc and marked it to skim later. I’d always been a fast reader, and lately, probably just out of necessity, I seemed to have picked up a little speed. Then I started organizing my notes and thoughts for the press conference I’d have to call in a day or two in conjunction with the UN assembly and announcement of the accords status. I wanted to be able to explain as clearly and thoughtfully as possible the hows and whys of the Avengers’ position. “Are you staying overnight, Christine?” Wanda asked. “Vision and I will cook!”

I laughed at the impish smile on her face, and the way Vision’s eyes rarely left her. “I am staying, but I don’t know about Vision’s cooking,” I told her.

Steve stood, stretched a little, and walked around the end of the table. “Is Pepper here with you?” he asked Tony. “It’s the weekend, and I know she likes to get out of town and get some fresh air, so I thought she might come, but I didn't see her.” 

“We're kinda… Well, not kinda…”

“Pregnant?” 

“No. Definitely not.” 

Steve visibly deflated. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad. “Doggone it. I was really looking forward to being an uncle to somebody I’d see more often than Clint’s kids.”

A hint of a smile, bittersweet, crossed Tony’s face. “We're taking a break. It's nobody's fault.” 

“What? I—I’m so sorry, Tony. I didn't know.” 

“I almost lost her, after New York; all the mess with Killian and the Mandarin. I trashed all my suits. But then, we had to mop up HYDRA, and then Ultron. My fault—”

“It was not!” Steve interjected.

Tony didn’t slow. “And then, and then, and then, I never stopped. Because the truth is I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna lose her, though. In her defense, I am a handful. Yet, Dad was a pain in the ass, but he and mom always made it work.”

“And you and Pepper will,” Steve said with positivity in every syllable. “She loves you so much, Tony. Don’t give up on her, or on you two. If there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, you come to me, you got me?” He clapped Tony on the shoulder then gave him a quick guy-hug. “I mean it, I—” 

Steve’s phone pinged. He stopped to look down at it, and his face went slack and pale. “Steve?” Sam asked. “You okay, buddy?”

“It’s Peggy,” Steve’s voice was suddenly very small. “She…she’s gone. She died in her sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Tony pulled that case out in CW, I actually paused the video and walked up close to my TV hoping to see some amazing vintage fountain pen or other. Instead, it was a couple of crappy old dip pens. Yes, I collect, so I can tell the difference at a glance. LOL. Granted, they do look like the ones FDR actually used, if you go historical and google the Lend-Lease Act Tony mentions in canon, but I was still disappointed. 
> 
> So instead, in my verse, Tony has Howard’s Parker 51 pen and pencil set, one of the best fountain pens ever made, in cocoa brown, a color that wasn’t released to the public until 1948 (and Steve remembers them, so Howard had them before 1945 when Steve went into the ice). I figure if anybody could get hold of something remotely techy several years before the rest of the world, it’d be Howard. :D 
> 
> https://www.peytonstreetpens.com/parker-51-aerometric-demi-set-1948-cocoa-medium-excellent-boxed.html 
> 
> This is one of the first sets made, so if Howard got early prototypes, they would look almost exactly like this.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Avengers sign the Accords, Steve attends Peggy's funeral. Chrissy defends the team to a hostile press, and explains their concerns. Her personal worries extend beyond the public, to Tony and Pepper's separation.

The news halted all discussion of other topics. Peggy’s niece wanted Steve to be a pallbearer, he said. Having just gone through the whole funeral-planning process, I didn’t envy her having to wrangle mourners from around the world. “We’ve only got three days on these accords!” Steve fretted. “I can’t run off to England.”

“You can’t not go,” Tony argued. “Do…you want me to come with you? I’m not good at funerary rites. Ask Chrissy, I talk too much and flirt inappropriately with centenarians, not that I don’t do that to you anyway, but—”

“Tony.” Smiling a little despite it all, Steve gripped Tony’s shoulders. “It’d be great to have you there. Peg was the last link to my old life, except for Bucky. I’d be lost if I hadn’t had you guys to lean on. But I think we need you more here. Work over that document, find the weak spots, weave it together with our notes, and ship it to the UN by their ridiculous deadline. The clock’s ticking, and Peggy would rise from her grave and come at me if I didn’t do everything I could to make sure the people who need protection get it. She’ll know you’re there in your heart.”

I was a bit lost, until Tony looked down at his feet and then back up. “I didn’t go to see her often when her mind started going. She…called me Howard, a lot of the time, when she was like that, and I…well, seeing her without her wits about her, as sharp as she’d been, it hurt too much. Call me a coward, won’t be the first time, but I think losing your mental faculties is worse than dying.”

“You’re anything but a coward and you know it,” Steve gently scolded him. I thought hard about my history, and then mentally kicked myself; Peggy Carter was a legend, an icon among women, a co-founder of SHIELD—and of course, Tony’s dad had been too, so it stood to reason Tony had known her at some point. 

“I was planning to volunteer to go to the UN meeting to represent us,” Nat offered. “I’ll go with you first, Steve.”

“Ditto,” Sam added. “Hop, skip and a jump from London to Vienna. Gas the quinjet up with hi-test.”

Steve looked half overwhelmed. “Thanks, guys. I, uh, don’t know that I can handle a big event like that conference, though, right after…you know.”

“Of course not,” Tony shook his head. “Once we get everybody’s X on our work in progress, you tell Peg goodbye, then fuck off someplace for a while, just be.”

They all signed the document, with provisional notations, using Tony’s dad’s fancy fountain pen. Steve, Nat and Sam all hugged me and hurried off to find suitable clothes for a funeral and an international summit, and I followed Tony back to the tower. With Pepper out of pocket, he had to run SI (to the accompaniment of much pissing and moaning), and while I could have run a major press briefing from the compound, the tower felt more like friendly confines. If ever I needed that additional bit of a boost, I suspected it was going to be with this one.

My suspicions were more than correct. The press corps were brazen and brutal, hammering away, demanding to know why the Avengers couldn’t agree to reasonable oversight. “Nobody said they couldn’t agree to that!” I insisted. “What they don’t agree to is decisions about their futures being made without them even being included in the discussions. For all their talents, they are human, remember. The Sokovia Accords are a good place to start, but they need work, and input for those closest to the action, who will be most affected. Protecting the everyday people of earth is vital, but protecting the rights of those who step up to defend them is also. Accountability is essential, yes, but so is building in the flexibility to respond promptly. You can’t always wait for a committee’s approval, so there have to be allowances made for that. I mean, can you imagine? ‘Uh, hello there, Chitauri, please don’t invade before we can gather a quorum and get them to agree, okay?’”

That line actually got a ripple of laughter from the room full of press. “Can you share some of the specific problems the Avengers have with the Accords as currently drafted?” one man asked. He was, I noticed, the same reporter I had schooled after the Sokovian disaster, but his attitude appeared to have been favorably adjusted.

“Glad to. Among the concerns they have raised, and will offer appropriate modifications to, are: a blanket ban on future development of self-aware artificial intelligence; an indefinite period for detaining enhanced persons under suspicion of crimes, without hearing; and a lack of adequate provisions for the self-determination of heroes and hero teams. That last one is especially important. Police officers, for example, are held to high standards of accountability, which is appropriate, but they aren’t expected to give up their human rights to protect the rest of us, and heroes shouldn’t be either.

“Another area of significant concern regards the information that the accords dictate be revealed by signatories. Not only are there minimal details provided as to the measures taken to protect that sensitive information, a number of the data points that are being demanded by the UN conflict with recognized norms regarding the right to privacy. For example, in the US, HIPAA safeguards people’s medical information, but the very specific material the accords panel wants disclosed to them relates to an individual’s powers, which can, I am informed by experienced legal minds, fall under the heading of PHI, or protected health information.”

After a couple more questions, I wrapped up by saying, “The Avengers are protectors. They protect Earth and its people, and they have to protect themselves and future generations of heroes too. By coming together with the UN, it’s our hope a framework can be built to support the safety of earth from within and from without, a structure in which all of us have a hand and play a part.”

Steve called the compound that afternoon, and FRIDAY and JARVIS joined technological hands to pull the Tower in on a conference call in the common area. He praised the balance and positive attitude I conveyed to the press, and shared some of Peggy Carter’s wisdom quoted at her funeral. “Her, uh, niece gave a really moving eulogy. Said Peg told her once the secret to making it was, compromise when you can, but where you can’t, don’t. Plant yourself like a tree and tell the world ‘no, you move’.”

“Sounds like Peg,” Tony smiled. “And you, to be honest, Cap. It’s good advice, as long as you remember the tree has to be flexible enough to move with the wind or it’ll get torn up by the roots.” Steve chuckled, and I nodded to myself, joy filling me at the way they had learned how to adapt and work as a unit, Tony’s flexibility and skill, Steve’s strength and steadfastness. “I called Clint,” Tony went on. “I explained the whole situation and where we had ended up coming down on the accords. Birdbrain tried to weasel out at first, argue he was retired and this wasn’t his business. I said Fine, we talked for a while, then he said he’s teaching Lila to shoot. Says she’s really good, maybe better than him. Which, I call bullshit, but she’s his kid, so apparently parents are biased that way?” Nat laughed in the background. “So I asked if he thought she might be an Avenger someday, and then made the excellent point that what we get enacted now will protect her down the road. Besides, does he really think we don’t know he’d come running if we really needed him?”

Steve laughed. “That’s true. So he’s in, I guess? The more the merrier. I’m still not thrilled with it, but the further into this we get, the more it looks like we won’t have to give up as much as I was afraid of.”

“Your All-American ass is covered, Steve, I promise,” Tony joked, before the call ended. Nat and Sam were turning in so they could fly to Austria early in the morning for the UN meeting, to present the Avengers’ position, supporting the accords’ principle, but offering revisions and alterations to the specific areas they found objectionable. Steve claimed he planned to sleep late, then get a flight home. “He’s lying,” Tony said. “He’ll be up at the ass-crack of dawn, like always.”

“Jogging around the East End, dodging double-decker buses, because like the doofus he is, he will forget they drive on the opposite side of the road,” I added. With a smothered laugh he sprang to his feet. “In a rush?” I asked. “Got a—” I cut myself off and tried not to look too inept. _Got a date?_ didn’t apply with Pepper overseas and Tony convinced she wasn’t coming back.

“Got a hot date with those accords, yeah, and maybe with some repulsors that need tweaking, and I think there’s some shitty R and D meeting in the morning I have to take both of my functioning brain cells to. So, yeah, full plate!” He was almost oscillating with nervy energy. Granted, his determination to safeguard innocents, his insistence that no collateral damage was acceptable, had not slackened since we first met, but this drive to codify that in the accords named for the place where the Avengers had narrowly averted global disaster was new. I wondered why, and then I thought, _They’re solid things. They’re stable ground, and he just lost, or thinks he’s losing, the most stable thing in his life._

It was none of my business, I kept telling myself that. I needed to butt out and let my friends work out their own issues. But Tony and Pepper were both my friends, and I wanted them both to be happy. Once, I had told Wanda and Pietro I’d never take anybody’s side against Tony, but that went for Pep too! Besides, if this domestic crisis was affecting what the Avengers did or didn’t do, a lobe of my brain argued, didn’t that then make it my business? 

I became aware Tony was trying to get my attention. “Earth to cornbread, come in crumby. What’s your plan for the evening? Cross-stitch, online mahjong, conquering a small country?”

“Um, I was just gonna eat, catch up on a little TV maybe, hit the sack early so I can monitor the UN assembly tomorrow. You wanna come eat a burger with me?” I blurted. “I hate for you to have to eat alone. Assuming you eat, which, don’t lie to me, Tony, I know good and well is an ongoing problem for you. It’s nothing fancy, just potato salad from the corner deli, and my Kool-Aid pickles.”

“Kool-Aid pickles!” Tony whooped. “Who wouldn’t cave for neon red sour cherry dill wedges? You’re trying to seduce me with pickles!”

Normally, that would be an pretext for shared laughter. I’d make exaggerated kissy-faces at him, or threaten to tell Pepper he’d sell her out for a gallon jug of gherkins, or throw a pillow at him, depending on the mood. Considering the current state of affairs, though, all it did was make me uncomfortable. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—take back the invite; it wasn’t Tony’s fault I felt awkward, and I didn’t intend to make things weird for him, when he already had so much weighing him down. So I hauled him up to my floor and took my unease out on slapping hamburger patties together and onto the stovetop grill.

It was the first time in a very long time that I had felt any tension when I was alone with Tony. While we ate, I tried to sound him out about his and Pepper’s situation, without a lot of success. If I fished for specifics, he wasn’t forthcoming; if I went for generalities, he evaded and dodged the way I’d seen him do for years with the media. Frankly, it hurt to look across my table, in the apartment Tony had designed for me in his tower, and watch him dance around me like I was still that nosy ambitious reporter who had buttonholed him outside Caesar’s Palace all those years ago. 

I deserved it, I supposed, and so I threw myself into acting as normal as possible. Making jokes, cracking wise, deploying my accent: I did everything I could think of to make it a pleasant and companionable time. “What’s wrong, cornbread?” Tony finally asked. “You’re not yourself. You’re going overboard to be the perfect little hostess, and to be totally honest, it’s creeping me out. I’m about to start checking your back for a zipper.”

Well, at least that was more the man who was my friend than the one who had teased and taunted me in Vegas. “I’m sorry, Tony,” I sighed. “It’s just—so much going on, all at once. The mess in Nigeria, dealing with Ross and the press corps, the accords, worrying about Steve losing his sweetheart, and th-that makes me keep thinking about mom, and then there's—”

“Hey.” His voice was soft, and he followed me into the kitchen with the dirty dishes. When I turned around, he was right there, and put his arms out with a questioning tilt of his head. His hugs were as precious a gift as anything else from his big heart. “I don’t know how the fuck the Avengers would have made it this far without you. Not sure we would’ve, really. Not sure _I_ would’ve.” He squeezed me again, and my heart warmed with thankfulness that he was able to do this now, to initiate touch and caring as well as receive it. “I’m not much of a comforter, but I’m here for you, Chrissy. Whatever you think of that I can do to help, I’ll give it a shot, I promise.”

_You could try clearing this mess up with Pepper, before I dig myself a hole fretting about you two_ , I thought but did not say. “Thanks. You’re the best. Right now, a little good company before I turn in would be the bomb.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unanticipated heart to heart between Chrissy and Tony.

We ended up crashed in my living room, Tony sprawled on the couch and me sitting on the floor in front, binging some episodes of Game of Thrones that we had both missed and passing a bag of goldfish crackers back and forth (I hogged them mostly, except when Tony tugged my ponytail to get them back). Around the end of the third episode, I heard faint snoring from behind me. I turned and was greeted by Tony sound asleep, his hair in his face and his mouth slightly agape. It was one of the cutest things I had ever seen, no lie. 

Cautiously, as though trying not to spook a shy wild animal, I stood up, got my granny’s afghan off the back of the couch and covered him up. “JARVIS?” I whispered after I stepped away. 

“Yes, Miss Everhart?” the AI practically whispered back.

“I’m not gonna wake him—we both know he doesn’t sleep near enough as it is. Keep an eye on him, please? If he wakes up and doesn’t remember where he is, orient him. If he wants to go back to the penthouse, let me know if he needs help. I have seen him faceplant into a wall when he was half asleep, and I know you have too.”

“Indeed.” J’s dry tone was at once amused and fond. I wished I could ask him what had actually gone down between Tony and Pepper, but JARVIS faithfully maintained the privacy of every resident under his charge, and I wasn’t about to ask him to break that programming. “You know I will watch over sir.”

I slipped away, tossed on my pajamas, brushed my teeth and fell into bed. It seemed as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was awakened by a crash. Thankfully, it wasn’t followed by an intrusion alarm, but JARVIS’ voice did reach me an instant later. ”Miss Everhart, sir has roused and is in some distress. Your hurricane lamp on the end table beside the sofa has met a sad end, I regret to report.”

“Screw the lamp. Never mind, yes, I know, that’s physically impossible for you—” I babbled while I rolled out of bed and tore off down the hallway to the living room. Tony was gasping, half lying on the floor, one leg still on the couch. I folded my legs under me and dropped to sit beside him. “Tony? Wake up, hon. You’re safe, c’mon.” He jerked and his eyes flew open, staring up at me with a dazed and panicky look obvious even in only the faint light of the city outside. “Do we need to breathe, Tony? I’ll breathe with you, you know I will. Can I touch you?” He pulled his leg down and lay flat with a grunt; I laid one hand on his abdomen and talked him through what he had come to nickname the Batshit Protocol. “Nightmare?” I asked quietly when he calmed. 

He grunted again. “Haven’t been this bad in a while. Got worse after…” 

I sat with him in silence, only speaking up to ask JARVIS to raise the lights a little, and reflected on how the sentence might end. With what I had been thinking earlier, about him and the Accords, this made me even more certain: Tony was adrift, with nobody to soothe his bad dreams away. “After Pepper left?” I asked at last.

“Don’t think she’s willing to put up w’my shit anymore,” he mumbled drowsily. “Wish she’d gone ahead an’ done it, not left me hanging saying she was going to break up with me when she got back.”

“Tony, I’m—that’s just hard for me to believe! It doesn’t sound like her. It doesn’t make sense.”

“’M not so old that my hearing’s gone. I know what she said. Said she needed a break from me, and we’d talk when she got back.” He took a deep breath, and let out a long sigh. “Guess ‘m just too damn hard to love.”

“Oh. Oh no, sweetie, no you aren’t. Hey, I love you.”

I bit my tongue, but after a long moment, Tony snuffed and cocked his head at me. “You do?”

“Sure, have for a long time. There are different kinds of love, you know, most of which don’t involve wanting in the other person’s pants.” His big eyes held mine as if trying to drag truth out of me; then his hand covered mine on his belly, and a small smile curled one corner of his mouth. “You can’t be very comfortable down here,” I said at last. “If you want to crash on the couch, that’s fine. I won’t be much company though, I love ya but I’m not gonna sit down here in the floor in shorts the rest of the night. The bed you put in my bedroom has more square footage than my dorm room at Brown did, though, and you’re welcome to half of that.”

Damn, after I’d made it clear I wasn’t trying to hit on him, I turned right around and sounded like I was trying to hit on him. He blinked sleepily at me, but what came out of his slightly more awake mouth after a pause was, “Are you actually wearing Iron Man pajamas?”

I glanced down at the charcoal grey basketball shorts and bright red t-shirt with a childlike drawing of the suit on it. “Hey, somebody has to test the merchandise y’all authorize. Steve’s road testing the Cap waffle iron right now.”

“He is? That dirty rat. He’s been holding out on us.”

“I’m sure he’s practicing before he unveils his new skills. Anyway, I’m stuck with the really boring stuff like pajamas, until you get those sex toys cracking—”

Tony sat straight up. “No no no, let’s not go there. That’s a brain bleach moment. It’s bad enough you and I shared a bed naked one time.”

“Hey,” I shot back, “it wasn’t my fault somebody had a little too much to drink and the Stark Missile wouldn’t launch.” I was ready for his laugh, but instead he went quiet and it chilled me. Yeah, I had told Pepper about that night, long ago, but I couldn’t bear for it to come between Tony and me now. He looked more—embarrassed, almost, than distressed, though; and suddenly I thought about our conversation after the scepter’s attack on our minds, how he had conceded he didn’t want me sexually. I had taken that to refer to his feelings now, but…”The failure to launch wasn’t the alcohol, was it?”

By now he honestly looked shamefaced. “I’m good at acting drunker than I am.”

“Duh."

“This is gonna come out awful, but then half of what I say comes out awful, especially when I don’t want it to. Anybody would be lucky to have you in their bed, in their life—I still wish you’d make an honest man out of Rhodey—but I, I hadn’t really wanted anybody I brought home for a while, even then, and—“

“That included me,” I finished for him. “And what, you’re trying not to insult me by saying so?” I did my best not to flat-out laugh in his face, but I couldn’t help but giggle. His eyes narrowed, then brightened. “All that tells me is that the Stark Missile knew your heart better than you did, or were willing to admit at the time anyway...” I kicked myself for saying that, when his eyes dropped. Dammit, I needed to get to the bottom of this mess. I couldn’t bear seeing him like this, missing Pepper so desperately and fighting so hard to hide it. “I told you a long time ago, I am your friend and you’ll have a hell of a time gettin’ shet of me.’’

“Getting what now?’ 

This time I did laugh full-on, because throwing that Southernism out did exactly what I hoped it would; it distracted him. I was learning misdirection from the best, after all. “Gettin’ shet of me. Getting rid of me, in other words.” He shook his head in obvious amusement, but whatever he opened his mouth to say was swallowed up in an enormous yawn. “Let’s worry about all that in the morning. Right now, I see one fella who needs some sleep, and I know I do. Offer still valid, you can stay here, or head back to your place.”

I unwound my legs and got to my feet. After a moment’s hesitation, Tony followed suit. He glanced down at the couch cushions in disarray and shoved them roughly back into place, then prodded at the remains of my lamp with his toe. I didn’t say anything, and I was too darn sleepy to clean up a mess; so I just waited patiently for him to decide. Honestly, I expected him to say good night and leave. As usual, even after years of knowing him, he surprised me. He gazed back down the short hallway to my bedroom, then back at me with an almost pleading look that spoke more than all his eloquence could say. I slipped one arm around his waist and took his hand in mine.

“Do you have a side preference?” I asked as we walked into the bedroom. Tony shook his head, still not speaking. I hopped into bed and scooted over to the right, where I usually slept. “Hop in,” I said and patted the mattress. “Sandman’s a-calling.” He scoffed at my silliness, but his eyes and smile were soft. _Lord, please let me be doing the right thing for him._ He brushed at his t-shirt and sweat pants, lay down on the left side of the bed, and turned to face out, practically perched on the edge. “Take all the space you want. Seriously, you should know how big it is, you ordered it.” A tiny huff of laughter was the only reply I got. “Are you better if I stay way over here, or can I touch you?”

“It’s…yeah, touch is okay, as long as you promise not to feel me up in my sleep.”

I chuckled, my leftover concern calming, and rolled over behind him, resting my hand on his hip. With a little blessing, maybe a companion, even if it was just me, would help ward off the nightmares. 

Sometime later, I woke again; rising slowly through the murky waters of sleep, I lay motionless until enough brain cells lit up to put together my situation. (That took a minute, since it had been ages since I’d shared a bed with anybody.) I considered rolling over to check the time, but the arm that had lain lax on Tony’s hip when I dozed off was wrapped around him now. _Damnit, I didn’t mean to get all clingy_ , I thought, although I should have known better—every time my best school friend and I had ever had a sleepover, I usually woke up in the morning spooning her. When a few more synapses started to fire, though, I registered that my hand was being held firmly to Tony’s chest. About that time, he twitched a little, and then scooted back toward me. So maybe this wasn’t a bad thing…

That hope lasted until a faint ghost of a whimper reached my ears, and broke my heart. Without a second thought, I tightened the embrace I found myself in. “Tony?” I whispered. “Hey, hot rod, it’s okay. You’re dreaming. It’s not real. You’re all right, you’re safe.”

The next sound was less fearful, thankfully, more of a sleepy grumble, and he pressed his body back against mine. I was glad my intervention seemed to have jarred the bad-dream cycle loose, but another worry presented itself, my cognition apparently being wired that way. Mostly asleep, was he going to think I was Pepper? “Tony?” I said again.

“Hmm?”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He wriggled down into the covers, his grasp on my hand not slackened.

Good start. “Do you know who I am?”

An exasperated little huff replied this time. “What’s with the mental status screening, cornbread? I know I didn’t knock your lamp off on my head—sorry about that by the way, I’ll replace it—so you can’t be checking me for a concussion.”

Now I felt really stupid. “Just checking, I, um…”

“Don’t worry, you promised you wouldn’t put a move on me in my sleep, same goes for me… I can tell the difference. You even smell different.”

“I smell?” I pretended to be offended, just to make him laugh. 

“You smell like that perfume you like, the one Pep doesn’t, the one that smells like demonic gingerbread.”

“Oh,” I grinned and settled again, the last of the earlier tension finally easing its grip on my mind. 

Just as I was starting to doze off, Tony’s voice came to me again, quieter now. “Love you too, Chrissy.”

I lay still until his breathing smoothed into sleep. Nosiness be damned, I resolved to call Pepper in the morning and get this straight for everybody's sakes. Carefully shifting, I pressed a soft kiss to his temple before I drifted off again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another scene I've been looking forward to writing for ages! Chrissy has been dancing around her emotions, worrying about not getting her feelings for Tony misunderstood, so I'm just about as glad as she is to finally get all this stuff said. (I also let her borrow my Iron Man pajamas. https://imgur.com/a/WXxsujn )
> 
> In case you want to bug your eyes out, I headcanon these are Tony's protos for Avengers sex toys. LOLOL. http://sarmai.tumblr.com/post/57774699811/6-pieces-of-pleasure
> 
> Pepper likes lighter, crisper scents, like the BPAL that shares her name. Chrissy likes deeper, richer scents. The one Tony alludes to is called Shub-Niggurath; it's named after a pagan fertility goddess in HP Lovecraft's classic horror stories, and it does often get described as demonic gingerbread.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bombing of the UN's accords meeting blows everybody's plans sky high. Natasha and Sam meet a panther while investigating, and JARVIS penetrates the frameup. Steve calls with some surprising evidence, and Tony plans to meet him and an unexpected new player to chase down the real villain.

As the classic rock song says, nothing ever goes as planned. That universal constant was brought home to me once again, when instead of the cheery synth melody of my phone’s alarm clock, I was blown out of sleep by the blare of the Avengers’ assemble alert. “What the _fuck_ —” Tony yelped. 

“Sir, there appears to have been a terrorist attack on the UN assembly in Austria,” JARVIS replied with as much regret and concern in his voice as an AI could possibly muster.

“Shit!” I yelped and dashed for the living room, remembering the broken glass on the floor just in time to double back and stuff my feet into my old sneakers. “CNN, J, please, and pull up my usual online news feeds.”

The scene was one of mayhem. A bomb concealed in a van parked on a street in Vienna had torn through the assembly building during the accords meeting—midday in Europe, early morning while we slept in America. At the moment, anchors were reporting a dozen people dead, including the king of Wakanda, and over seventy injured. I gasped; the insular little African country had already lost several people to the disastrous events in Lagos, but now to lose their head of state was unbearable to consider. 

The next bit of breaking news took my shock to full-bore horror. “Tony?” I got out, finally detaching my attention from the multiple screens I was monitoring to look around and see if he was even on my floor still. Then I jumped when his hand came down on my shoulder, and he handed me a cup of coffee with the other. “Thanks…Listen to this.”

I pointed to a holoscreen where a Euronews correspondent was gravely reporting, “Officials have released a video of a suspect who they have identified as James Buchanan Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, the infamous HYDRA agent, linked to numerous acts of terrorism and political assassinations.”

“JARVIS, find that video!” Tony snapped. “And analyze the shit out of it.”

He took off to his lab (with one of my coffee cups in hand), while I called Nat’s cell, then Sam’s. There was no answer on either. I left voicemails, praying they were unhurt and just busy helping at the scene, because come on, they were Avengers, and accords or no, that’s what they did. Steve was probably high above the Atlantic so calling him was out; he’d find out as soon as he landed, though, and damn, he didn’t need to hear from some ratings-thirsty reporter that his best friend was accused of an atrocity of this magnitude.

Before I could text him, my phone began to blow up, and I spent the next little while answering media questions, as well as I could, which wasn’t much. Mostly I just told them there were Avengers on the scene, the situation was being assessed, all the assistance the UN wanted was at their disposal, and we were absolutely not going to lay blame at anybody’s feet on the basis of a single fuzzy surveillance video. I chose a time around midday and sent a quick blast of emails and texts, plus posting on AvengersOnline and the other team social media accounts, that a formal press briefing would happen then.

When the furor died down for a few minutes, I threw some clothes on, then tossed an apple fritter in the microwave and carried it to Tony. He stuffed it in his mouth absently while scrutinizing the readouts of JARVIS’ biometric scans comparing the face in the video to all available photographs of Bucky Barnes. “I don’t think it’s him,” he mumbled around the pastry. “Just naked-eye, it looks hinky, but the calibrated identifiers are off too. Not much, it’s subtle, but J’s ocular sensors are damn hard to fool.”

“I estimate an 82% chance the person in the video is not James Barnes,” JARVIS chimed in. “Furthermore, sir, upon further assessment of some odd folds and other anomalistic elements of the facial structure, I calculate a 69% likelihood these images are in actuality a person wearing a rubber mask sculpted to resemble Sergeant Barnes.” On the holoscreen in front of us, a second image appeared, somewhat clearer. It depicted a man, tall and broadly built, with long dark hair peeking out from beneath a baseball cap, in apparent conversation with a street vendor. “By comparison, I captured this image from a security camera at an outdoor market in Bucharest, Romania, approximately thirty-two hours ago. My analysis of this photograph indicates at least a 93% likelihood this is in fact Sergeant Barnes.”

“Somebody framed him,” I conjectured. “But why?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Tony’s jaw was set. “We’ve got to get this to the right people, who will listen. J, start calling every high-level federal number we’ve got—except Ross, keep him out of this, he’ll twist it like alien DNA helices. If no luck there, we’ll try going straight to the UN. We bought into their accords, maybe they’ll listen before they send out shoot on sight orders. Hell, I’ll call Coulson if I have to—”

“Sorry to interrupt your train of thought, sir, but Captain Rogers is on the line,” JARVIS cut in.

“Whew. Okay, put him on speaker.” Tony half sat, half leaned against a nearby low work surface.

_This isn’t gonna be easy_ , I thought, and hopped onto the counter by his side. He didn’t reply, but the grateful look he shot me was more than sufficient.

“Tony!” Steve’s voice filled the room. “I just heard about Vienna. Have you been in touch with Nat and Sam? Are they all right?”

“Trying to make contact now. Cap, suspicion is falling on Barnes, but—”

“No! it wasn’t Bucky.”

“I know you don’t want to think it, and we’ve got evidence that you’re right—”

“Good. Evidence is good. But 100 percent, lead-pipe cinch, he didn’t do it.”

“How are you so sure, considering you haven’t seen our evidence, because we only just saw it ourselves?”

“Because he’s sitting right next to me, in Romania. I’ve been with him since early this morning.”

I smothered a squeak. “Wha—how?” Tony sputtered.

“I have a confession to make, sir,” JARVIS interjected. “Captain Rogers had requested of me, some time ago, that should I conclude with greater than 90 percent certainty that I had located Sergeant Barnes, I should communicate that information to him. I did so, some twenty-five hours ago.”

Tony ran a hand through his bed-head, messing it up even worse than it already was. He was, I noted, still wearing the same t-shirt and sweatpants from last night. “JARVIS contacted me right before Peggy’s funeral,” Steve went on. “I got Nat to make a quick side trip and drop me off here—it only took a couple of hours in the quinjet.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Tony exploded. 

“There was no reason to if it wasn’t him! And if it was, I figured the whole Avengers squad coming down on him like a ton of bricks wasn’t going to do anything but scare him and make him run. Maybe one on one, I could assess the situation on the ground, see how he was.”

“And the last time you went one on one with him he nearly killed you! For fucks sake, Steve, you’re supposed to be here by now, you didn’t think we’d worry when you didn’t show? Not to mention, because you obviously weren’t, that we’ve barely gotten a framework for regulation in place and you promptly went and, not broke it, but bent it like Beckham never imagined—” Seemingly out of words, Tony threw his arms in the air with a dramatic groan.

An unusually cautious voice behind us said, “Christine?”

Not expecting visitors, I whirled, then relaxed when I saw Pietro standing there, shifting from foot to foot. Behind him, the golden sparkle of a portal shrank and closed. “Oh Hey, I totally forgot you were coming to help Tony today, and I guarantee you Tony’s forgotten too.” I tilted my head toward where Tony was still engaged in a slightly contentious exchange with Steve about how to frame this little Romanian side trip to fit within the accords’ guidelines.

Quickly, I hopped down off the counter, gestured Pietro to one side, and brought him up to speed on the events of the morning. His mouth hung open with mounting surprise. “Natasha and Samuel are unharmed, though, are they not?”

“We haven’t spoken with either of them, but I’m just about to try to call them again, if _that one_ ,” I indicated Tony again, “will hold it down a tad.” 

Tony barely noticed except to raise a hand to Pietro and make a rude Italian hand gesture in my general direction. “You and your special snowflake better sit tight till we can find more proof to clear him,” he told Steve. “It’s okay you’re there, he’s kind of in custody, or we can definitely spin it that way—protective custody, sort of? The UN’s accords cut off their collective nose to spite their face at the moment, if they’re expecting a lot of help from us; per their own directives, even though we’re in the process of modifying them, the Avengers won’t get involved until we get an explicit request from them. So there, nyah nyah.”

My phone started to ring again, and I excused myself and stepped across the room to handle another round of media aggravation. As if that wasn’t enough, a couple of minutes in, Tony’s phone rang. Tony glanced around and saw I was occupied; he pulled the phone from his pocket and held it out to Pietro, who gingerly took it and answered. “Natasha!” he exclaimed. “Yes, this is Pietro. Tony and Christine are in other conversations. You and Sam are well?...oh! That is good. Here, I will let you tell Tony.” 

He held the phone out to Tony, who took it back. “Cap, Nat’s on my cell. Go make sure Frosty the snowman doesn’t melt, I’ll be right back with some fresh-baked knowledge biscuits, I hope…Itsy Bitsy! You and the birdman got all your extremities? Great. What’s the story?” I told the overly chatty Post writer on my phone that updates were coming in and I had to go, and promptly routed all calls to voicemail. For his part, Tony was still listening intently. “Okay, okay…Oh, now that sounds like a story best told over alcohol…a panther? No shit. Huh. So let’s get the authorities into the loop on this, but we might not want to…?—yes, yes, all right, Widow, forgive the ignorant Muggle, your spy-fu is the best, acknowledged. Yeah, work with them as much as they will let you. Later.” He disconnected and spoke up so Steve could hear. “Nat hacked into the surveillance net and they tracked the perp, found his bolthole. He was so eager to make like a wiener and beat it, he left his gear behind, including that latex mask of Barnes you speculated about, JARVIS, good work—”

“I appreciate your acknowledgement, sir,” JARVIS returned.

“They met up with the Wakandan king’s son, who apparently—showed up in a cat suit? Not like Nat’s, but like, ears and claws, full-on furry, and tough as vibranium. Nat also found what she said looks like some printouts of intel HYDRA might’ve had. She kept them conveniently hidden when the Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force showed up. To prove Barnes was set up, they didn’t need to see documents about further Winter Soldier experiments at a base in Siberia, satellite maps to the place, a note about ‘seeing an empire fall’, or handwritten annotations about the, ah…the conditioning procedures.” I shuddered. That was just a synonym for torture, from what little I’d heard, and the bleak expression on Tony’s face said the same.

“The others you found documented in the Soviet file? The ones they used Howard’s serum for?” Steve breathed, sounding just as horrified as Tony looked. “Five doses, you said he had, so five more Soldiers?”

“So it would appear. Barnes know anything about the place? Or this guy, name’s Helmut Zemo, from the ID Nat found—did he have any connection with the program? Could he unleash these Terminators, control them? He may have set the bomb and framed Olaf there, hoping to distract us so he could get to the Robocop stash and turn ‘em loose.”

“Hang on,” Steve said, then spoke in a muffled voice as though he had covered the phone. A second male voice answered, even more dampened.

A brief exchange ensued, then the second voice came clearly through the connection. “Uh, hello?”

Tony visibly started. “Barnes? Um. Yeah, hey.” Beside me, Pietro’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but I put a finger to my lips. He knew as well as any other Avenger would how fraught this moment had to be, Tony speaking for the first time to the man who had been used by HYDRA to kill his parents. I moved across the lab, quiet, but putting myself in Tony’s line of sight so as not to startle him. It wasn’t as if I could do anything to help, but I just felt driven to be there for him. Tony rubbed one hand over his face and took a shaky breath as if trying to compose himself. Without even looking my way, he reached out, caught my wrist and pulled me against his side. I didn’t even squeak, just hugged him tight. “Okay, talk to me. These other Winter Soldiers, and their HYDRA resort in scenic Siberia. What do you know?” 

“Four men, one woman. Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. And that was before the serum.”

“They all turn out like you?”

“Worse.” Barnes’ tone was flat and unequivocal. “They were stronger than me, and less manageable.”

“Peachy,” Tony said. “This Zemo, could he control them?” 

“Enough, if he had the documentation. If he had directions to the base, he probably also has the book with—with the control words, the triggers that…activate what’s in our heads.” I held back a gasp, and Tony’s hand tightened against me. “I heard what you told Steve your other people found. Said he wanted to see an empire fall, right? With these guys he could do it. They speak thirty languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night. You'd never see them coming.”

“Here, gimme the phone,” Steve said in the background, and came in clear in a moment. “We’ve gotta stop him, Tony. Me and Buck, we can track him down—”

“Not by yourselves you can’t,” Tony snapped. “Five against two is only good odds if you’re a Sackett. Plus, note that ‘our’ your boy just threw out. If Zemo has all the triggers, he can turn Barnes on you in a second, faster than you could use that shutdown code, assuming it's still in effect.”

“It’s not gonna happen, he’ll be fine. I can—” Steve began, but Tony rode right over his protests.

“‘You are not going there alone, you idiot. The last time you got your star-spangled ass in a bind and pulled rank and wouldn’t tell me where you were, you ended up inhaling half the damn Potomac. Gimme your fuckin’ co-ords, I’ll be there in—” He paused, and his eyes briefly took on the faraway look of a man computing. “Have to take the spare quinjet, so—two hours crossing the Atlantic, gear down to overland speed, and about two more to get to Bucharest. So, enjoy a happy hour, maybe—he probably can’t get drunk any more than you can—and I’ll see you in a while. Bye!” He waved his free hand and cut Steve off mid-sputter. “Hope to shit they stay put till I get there,” he muttered, then spun and thrust a finger at Pietro. “Speedy, can you call and get Dumbledore to portal you back to Hogwarts? Stay close to your sis, and as soon as she’s done, have him zap your asses back to the compound. With everybody out of pocket, Ross may decide to carpe his diem and try to use this as an excuse to ram the Accords through in their current form, or some reactionary hothead may target you. I want you both, and Vision, safe.”

“Better yet,” I replied as an idea struck me, “Ross knows where the compound is, and I wouldn’t put a damn thing past him, including sending agents up there to try to provoke a reaction he could use as grounds to have them arrested. So, what if we consider them going somewhere completely off the books for a day or two, if a certain somebody is willing, and he will be considering his name is on their paperwork…”

Pietro laughed, and Tony lit up. “Cornbread, you never cease to amaze me. J, call the Bartons.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't see that coming? :D
> 
> Events are somewhat compressed in this verse; instead of Zemo killing Dr. Broussard and taking his place to trigger Bucky (which can't happen since Bucky isn't arrested), Zemo got the intel about Siberia from Karpov before killing him.
> 
> On the quinjets' speed, according to the MCU wiki-- it stays below the speed of sound (about 750 mph) over populated areas to avoid disruptions, but over ocean or unoccupied territory, the jet can reach up to Mach 2.1, or 1600 mph. 
> 
> Tony’s comment about odds comes from Louis L’amour’s classic Western novels featuring the Sackett family. Five bad guys against two Sacketts are pretty good odds from the Sacketts’ perspective, because they are all universal badasses.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Happened in Siberia, Wordsmith style, part 1. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: contains no absurd mass fight scenes, tragic accidental injuries, or recruitment of spiderlings.

After a few rings, Laura answered. “Hey, other agent!” Tony greeted her.

“Tony! Hello, it’s good to hear from you. Or maybe not. Clint and I were just watching the news.”

“Yeah, flaming bags of poo on the porch, all right. Listen, since we’re all scattered, I was wondering if you two could take three kittens for a couple of days. Merida’s been feeding them whenever he’s in town anyway, so they know him, and they’ve kinda got us all wrapped around their fluffy little paws, so we don’t want to leave them alone, and we figured the smaller agents would like the company.”

Pietro’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I will tell Wanda Tony called her a kitten,” he whispered in my ear. “She will wish she could turn him into one.”

“Lord God, no, please don’t,” I returned, struggling to hold back giggles at the mental image that came to me. “He’d be nothing but a tiny angry ball of dark fur. How could he be anything else?”

“Um, sure. We love cats,” Laura replied without missing a beat. “Will we need to come and get them?”

“Nope, we have transportation lined up, so no need for a kittenball run.” _‘I hope,_ ’ Tony mouthed in our direction. “Just have some tuna and a bowl of cream handy, and bedding.”

“Will do! How’s Pepper? Tell her I miss our chats, I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“Ah…she’s good. I’ll pass that right along. Sit tight, say hey to Legolas.” Tony hung up with a small frown. 

Pietro already had his phone out calling for his pickup. A few moments later, a ring of fire appeared in the air, and a grumpy-looking Stephen Strange stepped through. I gave Tony a gentle shove in the opposite direction. “You get ready to roll, I’ll handle this crowd,” I said out the side of my mouth, then put on my best camera-ready face. “Stephen!” I said with a show of relief, approaching and taking his hands in mine. “So glad you could respond quickly. We have a stack of crises, and we could really use a tiny bit of help from you.”

“I _hope_ it’s only a bit,” the sorcerer griped. “Wanda and I were right in the middle of working out a particularly sticky interdimensional parachronal invocation. If I leave her alone with it too long, she may well decide to try something herself and end up in some Cagliostrian time-loop. Or eat the last of Wong’s tuna salad.”

“Neither of those outcomes sound good,” I agreed, and swiftly explained that with mixed emotions among the public and government officials about enhanced people, and all the Avengers out on calls, the twins and Vision were safest staying with Hawkeye at a safe house.

“Just an extra portal?” he shrugged. “I met Barton when Wong and I came here to talk about the Infinity Stones and Thanos, so I can locate him through that contact, or through Wanda and Pietro. Nothing major, then.” He seemed supremely casual, but the slight tremor of his hands in mine belied that nonchalant air. “You’ll owe me, though.”

“The Avengers, or me personally?” I inquired with a grin. “If the latter, I’ll come over one morning and fix you and Master Wong a full-on Southern breakfast.”

“I’m watching my cholesterol…but I’ll negotiate with Stark,” Stephen said dryly and glanced over my shoulder. “Where is the douchebag?”

_“Tony_ is getting ready to go meet Steve on an investigation,” I replied with a guileless smile. He knew what I’d done, and the hint of a smirk he returned said so, before he gathered Pietro and portaled away. 

I headed for the roof and found Tony ready to take off. “I looked our rabbit up,” he told me. “Colonel Helmut Zemo, Sokovian Intelligence. He ran Echo Skorpion, a Sokovian covert kill squad. So, maybe he has a grudge against us because of that? Won’t know until we run him down, I guess. Keep that to yourself for now though, just FYI.”

I nodded. “Listen, I thought of something, and you probably have already of course, but how does this mess square up with the Accords? Steve shouldn’t be in Romania without permission, I’m guessing from what you said to him earlier, and y’all are about to high-tail it off to Siberia without letting the Russian government know first.”

“We’ve already got edits on the accords going,” he shot back while finishing pre-flight check. ”Among other things, we’ve requested new provisions for emergency incursions to be allowed by signatories in cases like immediate risk of accused criminals getting away or evidence being destroyed in an investigation. If we get called on it after the fact, we’ll just plead that we got the lead and had to go after Zemo before he escaped and triggered the other Winter Soldiers, and we were afraid if we contacted local authorities it might leak to him. Proving a frame-up should take priority, keeping an innocent man from being tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.”

I thought of the hesitant voice on the phone, growing more confident and sure when he was asked specific questions. Bucky Barnes, I got the distinct impression, was no dummy, and, unless I missed my guess, would try his damnedest to prove himself of assistance. “One other thing, and feel free to hush me up if I’m speaking out of turn here since this is mission stuff, but considering that everybody nowadays keeps important data on tablets or laptops or smartphones, the fact that a mess of hard copies with convenient addendums scribbled in the margins were left where they could be found—it just makes me suspicious, Tony. What if it’s a trap? Like, maybe this guy Zemo hoped he could frame Barnes and leave a trail of bread crumbs that Steve—and maybe more of you—would follow looking to clear him?”

“Nat figures the same thing. She and Wilson wanted to meet up with us in Bucharest, but we don’t know whether Zemo might have confederates in Austria watching them. If they stay put, they can manage the UN brass, answer any questions, and we can sneak up on the guy.” He grinned. “We might have backup anyway. Nat said T’Challa, the Wakandan prince with the suit, vanished after they found the notes, so he may be heading our way—”

In my pocket, my phone buzzed; it was a text from Wanda saying they had arrived safely at Clint’s. By the time I passed that along, Tony had messaged Rhodey (who was in Morocco dealing with some pirates) and was ready to hit the skies. “Be careful, hot rod. I still refuse to let you put me in the position of having to explain to Pepper how you got yourself killed—"

“Don’t,” Tony said quietly, with a set to his mouth like he had made up his mind what was going to happen and he wasn’t going to let facts get in his way.

“Fine. You’re gonna feel like a dumbass when all this works out fine. Just you wait.” I moved in for a hug. “I’ll be praying. I know, that doesn’t mean much to you but—”

“It does,” he cut me off. “It means everything to me, because it’s you.”

For a moment, I didn’t quite know what to say. I knew Tony didn’t share my faith, though he had never, ever, dissed it. “Just try not to get distracted and get yourself hurt, okay, please? Tell Steve to watch himself, and Barnes too. As far as he goes, I guess we’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

That prodded Tony out of the dark mood he had briefly dropped into, and a determined smile spread across his face. I hopped down to the roof and watched the quinjet lift and shoot off to the east. _Dear Lord, watch over them all, guard them and give them strength and wit against this sly enemy._

I had seventy-nine voicemails, and by the time I waded through them and suited up, it was time for the press conferences. Explaining the constantly shifting state of affairs to the press was one of the most tense times for me since becoming the communications manager for the Avengers. It felt like stepping out onto a tightrope stretched taut over an abyss, a balancing act to not say the wrong thing. A quick check of the news before I went out showed me that Ross was already in media mode, holding forth on Fox News, seizing the accusations against Bucky as a pretext to try to ram through the Accords in their unacceptable form. “The Avengers’ input is no more needed than convicts’ input is needed when laws are written,” he spat. “They are only offering excuses to hide behind and deny responsibility for their actions!”

Of course some people were going to swallow that, but really, I told myself, all I had to do was tell the truth and repeat a few things I’d said multiple times. That’s exactly what I did, along with a promise to upload the original Accords, plus the Avengers’ proposed revisions and adjustments, to the team website so everybody could judge for themselves who was closer to the truth. 

Surprisingly, the press corps listened; they would have been even more intent if I could have offered up some tasty morsels of piping hot breaking news, but at the moment that was out of the question. If Helmut Zemo was monitoring the media, I couldn’t say anything to tip him that the Avengers were on to his game. What I said, apparently, was enough, though, and the cameras and recorders backed off. With the locals assuaged, I had to jump into three consecutive Skype sessions with media from around the world, answering more questions as well as I could.

My own battle fought at last, I changed into comfortable house clothes, then sat down and breathed for a minute, sending a quiet prayer for calm for Tony. Sure, he knew on an intellectual level that Bucky Barnes had not been the mind behind his parents’ death, and he knew how the guy had been tortured and broken. As much as I loved Tony though—and yeah, I had finally up and said it to his face, I loved the guy—I knew how emotionally volatile he could sometimes be. He had had to deal with finding out his mom and dad were murdered, his surrogate father had had a hand in it, and now he was going to have to work in a precarious circumstance with the man the killers had forced to do their dirty work. Saying it ‘wasn’t going to be easy’ was the understatement of the millennium.

JARVIS’ voice roused me from thought. “Miss Everhart, sir has arrived in Siberia with Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. Shall I open comm channels?”

“Yes, please do, thanks.” A holoscreen appeared in the air above my desk, streaming the visual feed from Tony’s suit-cam as the audio came in.

“—okay with him backing you up, Cap? You know him better than I do, and you can tell how he’s functioning.” Tony’s voice was low, and I suspected this was a private question he was asking. The cam showed Steve in full gear, face turned toward him, as they walked toward what looked like a rocky cliff.

“I do,” Steve replied after a short pause.

“Okay. Okay, so am I then. Just don’t stare at my butt, Olaf,” Tony added as he turned his head. 

A third figure came into view, no more than a beefy silhouette against the backdown of an icy, barren hilltop, but carrying a sniper rifle with the careful ease of one who knew how to use it. The man cocked his head at Tony. “All I’m lookin’ at is canned ham,” he responded without missing a beat, in a cheerful tone and a Brooklyn accent like Steve’s that sometimes crept out. “Not much to see there.” 

Tony was silent for an instant and then cackled. I nearly spat water all over my laptop as I followed suit, and he froze. “Okay, I’m not hearing voices in my head now, I hope.”

“Oops. No, Tony, you haven’t completely gone around the bend yet. It’s just me, I’m monitoring.”

“Hah, great. We’re transmitting back to the Tower, gentlemen. Say hi, Cap. You too, Frosty.”

The image swung back to Steve, who had paused to glance back, one hand to his ear as the team comm reached him. Before them I now saw a set of huge, rusty double doors set into the mountainside. “Is that Chris?”

“None other,” Tony replied. “Everybody else is out of pocket or still in Austria on UN clusterfuck-clearing duty.”

“Hey Chris.” Steve shot Tony’s mask-cam a thumbs up and a quick grin that vanished when he turned back to the doors. One was slightly ajar. “Somebody’s beaten us here.”

The image shifted slightly. I imagined Tony shrugging. “With any luck, they made us cocoa. We got any vodka in the jet?” Steve pulled the doors open and stepped through, with Tony on his heels. “Too much to hope for, I guess. Need to take that up with Romanoff, she’s slacking. And this,” Tony continued as they entered a small corridor and he turned again to face the third man, “is Olaf the magic snowman, aka James Buchanan Barnes. Say hi to my girl Chrissy, Barnes.”

In spite of the dim illumination, I could finally make out a few details. This was clearly the same man from JARVIS’ marketplace photo, though instead of casual clothes and baseball cap, he wore a black tactical jacket with the left sleeve cut out, revealing a bulky arm made of silvery metal plates. I recalled it, and the red star on the shoulder, from Steve’s drawings after his first run-in with the Winter Soldier. The blue-grey eyes were not killer cold, though, but looked frankly anxious. “Um, hi,” he offered.

“Tell him hi back,” I grinned, feeling a little overcome myself by looking into the face of my girlhood crush, even if he couldn’t see me at the moment. Half to myself, I mused, “He looks better than in Steve’s sketches, but still a tad skinny for that size of a guy. Wonder what he likes to eat…”

Tony’s smothered guffaw could probably have been heard in Moscow, with no amplification needed. “She says hi, she thinks you’re too thin, and she wants to feed you. You’ll love it, she’s a great cook.”

“Oh fuck you, I didn’t say _tell_ him that!” I exclaimed. 

“Well, excuse me, Paula Deen.”

I facepalmed. “Dammit, if you’re gonna compare me to a Southern cook, do not make it Paula Deen, for a number of reasons. Trisha Yearwood, maybe, but not Paula Deen.”

“Barefoot Contessa,” he countered. “She’s from Brooklyn and that’s south of Manhattan, how’s that?” Before I could think up a suitable retort Tony added, “Okay, going in and going quiet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony's 99 percent sure nobody is monitoring the Tower's phone conversations, but a little paranoia never hurt anybody, hence his coded references when he asks Laura if the twins and Vision can stay with her and Clint. Plus, I get to make a gratuitous side reference to all the adorable fics where Tony somehow or other ends up as a cat, which for some reason never fail to amuse the crap out of me. lol


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Happened in Siberia, the Wordsmith verse's version, part deux.

The short hallway ended at a small booth. “Elevator,” Bucky murmured. I muted my end of the comm and watched as Steve led the way inside. A cage-door closed, and I shivered with a hint of indirect claustrophobia as old machinery whined in the dark. They traveled down into the depths in silence, until the ride stopped. Steve heaved the cage door open and they stepped out, keeping close to a wall. Tony moved as quietly as a high-tech suit of armor could, I supposed, peering this way and that into rooms and alcoves that were mostly full of piles of junk. He gave an occasional glance toward Bucky, who moved with an uncanny and strangely riveting grace in spite of his size. He had been trained—trained, hah, more like tortured—into the best assassin ever, it was said, and I could see it. Watching him was mesmerizing.

Up a flight of stairs, then down more corridors, some rounded like tubes, they moved, until Tony suddenly said, “I got one heat signature up ahead.”

“The chamber with the cryo units,” Bucky said, and the guys picked up their pace. Lights began to kindle around them. Tony halted, as a huge room filled with massive, brutal-looking equipment was revealed. Five large, telephone-booth-like tanks sat spaced around the perimeter with old computers and racks of gear surrounding them. A creepy yellow glow rose inside each one, along with a haze like steam or mist. Behind each glass wall, an indistinct human shape could be seen reclining—with a neat bullet hole piercing the glass, and a wound in every figure’s chest.

“If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep,” a man’s voice suddenly boomed. “Did you really think I wanted more of you, Sergeant Barnes?”

The image I watched jolted; Tony was startled. “What the hell?” Bucky hissed.

“I'm grateful to them, though,” the voice coming from all around—speakers in the room, I guessed—continued. “They brought you here.” Something moved against the back wall of the expanse. Instantly, Tony homed in on it: a small observation window, through which a man peered. Steve launched his shield, but it hit and caromed back with no damage done. “Please, Captain,” the voice, Zemo probably, taunted. “The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets.”

“I'm betting I could beat that,” Tony growled.

“Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark, given time. But then you'd never know why you came.”

Steve stalked toward the window. “You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?”

“I’ve thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realized… there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw.” Over a year. _Sokovia. You were right_ , Tony, I thought.

Clearly, Tony had filled Steve and Bucky in too, on their way. “You're Sokovian,” Steve said. “Is that what this is about?”

“Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell,” the man sneered. “No. I'm here because I made a promise.” 

Without warning, the video feed vanished, and I gritted my teeth against an exasperated yell. Tony had opened his faceplate, or disengaged his helmet altogether, and with an enemy within eyeshot, he must have had a reason, so I wasn’t going to bitch. Besides, the audio was still loud and clear. “You lost someone?” Steve said, going for his best sympathetic Captain voice.

“I lost everyone.” Zemo’s tone was dour. “And so will you.” _Damn, fellas, get out of there!_ I wanted to shriek. It was too late for backup to get to them, and Tony only had a half-fledged suspicion the Wakandan prince might have followed the same trail they had. Holding my breath, I strained my ears and half closed my eyes to focus all my attention on what I could hear. Instead of gunfire or violence, all I heard were a few clicks and a hiss of static. “An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead… forever.” 

What the hell did this lunatic mean? The notes Nat had found alluded to bringing down an empire, but Zemo had named no country. I heard movement, and then Tony’s voice, low and tight. “I know that road…what is this?”

A road? I was lost. After another crackle of static, faint noises began to sound: a screech and bump, the rev of an engine, a man’s unintelligible voice, another thump—and abruptly, and much plainer, a soft gasp, followed by something like a little sob. _What the fuck?_ I almost blurted. A woman’s voice appeared in the stream, and I could almost make out the word she said: _power_ , maybe?

“Tony…” Steve's words were accompanied by scrapes and shuffles. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

A shaky breath. “Yeah, I know, thanks.” Tony sounded choked. 

“Thank God we knew,” Steve breathed.

Tony’s breath was still unsteady. “Doesn’t make it much easier but, yeah, if I’d seen this with no warning—I would’ve lost my fucking mind.”

I was practically vibrating with frustration. Almost without my willing it, my hand rose to toggle off the muting control. “Tony? Steve? What’s going on?”

“Chrissy?” Tony’s voice hitched on my name, and my heart squeezed. “The video we read about in the Russian file?”

I throttled a reflexive cry. “The one HYDRA got? The one of…” The surveillance video of his parents' murders?

“Yeah,” Tony said simply. “That. It’s here. We just saw it.”

If a genie had appeared in that moment I would have had two wishes ready to fire off: the ability to reach Siberia in a flash, and the power to kill whoever was responsible for this. “But why? That Zemo, why would he want to—”

“Bucky!” Steve yelled unexpectedly, accompanied by more scuffling and a thump like a body dropping. “What in—”

_“I remember now,_ ” Bucky almost moaned. “Been tryin’…wish I hadn’t of…I killed, I kill, lemme go Stevie, I’ll kill you too…”

“Hey, okay, calm down—wait, where you goin’ Buck, c’mon—ow! Don’t swing on me, jerk—”

“Back off, Cap,” Tony snapped, with gasps in the background. “Barnes? Barnes, look at me. You’re having an anxiety attack. I know the neighborhood well, been paying rent there for years. You feel like you’re gonna die, yeah, I get that, but you’re not. You’re okay. We won’t let anybody hurt you, and we won’t let you hurt anybody. Now, breathe for me, all right?” As I listened and marveled, Tony dropped into full-on Batshit Protocol mode, doing exactly what I had taught Pepper and JARVIS to do years ago to help him through panic attacks. “I’m not gonna touch you, if you don’t want a hand. If you do, that’s cool, we can work with that. It’s just, y’know, we don’t have a Festivus pole, so no airing of grievances right now, we’ll save all that for when we get back to civilization, okay—”

Zemo’s voice sounded again, and drowned out Tony’s attempts to sooth. He was speaking another language now, maybe Russian? “What the fuck—” Tony began before Bucky screamed wordlessly. “Barnes, hold on, hey, stand down—"

“Noooo!” There were more thumps, and scuffles and pants. “It’s the triggers,” Bucky cried as the voice continued to resound. “Get outta here, Stevie—you too, Iron Man. He’ll make me come after you!”

“Shit,” Tony snarled. In the air above my desktop, the video feed shimmered to life again as he lowered his faceplate. Bucky Barnes stood on shaky legs, in the process of kicking his rifle as far away as he could, his eyes darting around. “We have a kill switch, well, like that, except not kill and not a switch, but other than those, exactly like that. Cap, can you hold him?”

“Tony, what are you—” Steve began, obviously confused.

“The shutdown code!” Tony yelped as the recitation rose to a hysterical crescendo. 

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands. The sight made me sick, and I wished again I could get my hands on Zemo, the sack of shit. Abrupt silence was as loud as the yells a moment before. Bucky twitched and jerked, then dropped his hands and opened his eyes. They were glazed; he swallowed hard and dropped his trembling hands to his sides. “ _Dobraye utro_ —” the shrill amplified voice began again.

_“Nyet_!” Bucky shouted. He shook his head, shivered all over and took a step forward toward Tony. “ _Yah…yah…nyet, nyet, nyet!!!_ ”

Steve stepped up behind him. “Buck, fight it. Don't listen to him. It’s okay, we’ve got you, I got you.”

Bucky swung at him, his metal fist going wide but obviously deadly all the same. “Ohhh boy,” Tony said. “So that Festivus thing, maybe I spoke too soon? Looks like time for the feats of strength. Hold him, Cap! See, now aren’t you glad you waited for me?” Unafraid in his suit’s shelter, he stepped up when Steve pinned Bucky’s arms to his side and said, “ _Sputnik!_ ”

The wild eyes widened, then rolled back in his head. Steve went to his knees, taking Bucky’s now limp body with him, and Tony followed suit. “What’d the file say, he’ll stay out for a minute or two?” Steve asked.

“Yeah. Just time enough for the handlers to sedate and restrain him, if he got unmanageable.” Tony’s words were caustic. “Wonder why they didn’t—”

A metallic buzz filled the room. Steve’s head, bent over Bucky checking on him, came up sharply. His eyes scanned the space beyond Tony’s shoulder and narrowed. “Um, Tony?” he nodded curtly in that direction. “Looks like we got company. Healing factor.”

Tony swung around…just in time to see five wobbly but determined figures climbing out of opening cryo-pods. “Ohhh fuck.”

“Thinking Zemo should’ve aimed for the head,” Steve observed. Typical military black humor; Lord knew I’d heard Rhodey do it enough.

“And double tap,” Tony added. “Rule two, always double tap. He’s an idiot.” He got to his feet. “ _Sputnik?_ ” he called uncertainly. That only drew the unsteady Winter Soldiers’ attention. “Worth a try,” he sighed, and started firing repulsor shots. Steve and his shield flew in and out of view, while Tony stayed fairly stationary. It occurred to me he was blocking the super soldiers from getting to Bucky while he was defenseless. I watched, helpless to do anything except pray and freak silently out. It felt like an hour before the comms picked up a weak groan from behind Tony, followed by “Dammit, Stevie, I _told_ ya, it always ends in a fight. ‘Specially when you’re involved.”

“Look alive, snowdrop!” Tony hollered over his shoulder. “We saved you some.”

The melee raged all over, with one Soldier trying to climb a wall like a spider and drop onto Steve (Tony flew up, once Bucky had reclaimed his rifle, and blasted that one. He fell and went splat. Sad, but necessary, I figured). Another, slower to start up, took shelter behind a mass of equipment. “Tony!” Steve yelled. “New York!” He held up his shield, Tony fired straight at it, and the energy beam ricocheted off at the perfect angle and nailed their prey. 

“Nice calculation,” Bucky complimented from beside Tony.

“Basic trig. You’re a sniper, you know this stuff," Tony returned, moving forward yet again until the three were back to back in the center of the room. “Zemo?”

“Flew the coop, or hunkered down,” Steve growled. “Worry about him later. Two down?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Dunno where the—”

Bangs and slams echoed as three bodies hurtled from seemingly nowhere. One grappled with Tony, her face a mask of grim determination, and JARVIS' alarm buzzers began to sound as her inhuman strength even impacted the Iron Man suit. Finally, Tony got a gauntlet free and blasted the attacker across the room. “Barnes! Pick that one up—Barnes?” On the floor, Bucky was grappling with one Soldier. Tony got an arm around the assailant’s neck, hauled him off and slung him with sufficient force that he probably went splat too. By this time I wasn’t sure I cared, I just wanted the guys to get out of there safe. _Lord, LORD, protect them—_

“Tony, watch your back!” Steve yelled. Tony spun in time for the cam to show his former attacker back on her feet and leaping along the stacks of equipment like some demented gymnast. Steve slung his shield while he executed what looked a lot like a cross-field football pattern, meant to whip behind his comrades and hit the Soldier Tony had just ejected from the fray.

It would have worked, too, as far as I could tell, except that, unbelievably, the demented gymnast caught the damn shield in midair and slung it back—not where Steve was, but where he had been a second before—where Tony stood, shielding Bucky again with his armored body.

The last thing the video feed showed me was the circle of vibranium striking home, crossways, dead in the center of Tony’s chestplate. 

It was a good thing the Tower’s upper floors were deserted. Nobody could hear me scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all are enjoying reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing it. :D
> 
> The New York reference was of course to that great team move Tony and Steve used in Avengers 1, and my explicit rejection of the horrible mirror image of it in CACW.
> 
> In this verse, Zemo made the mistake of shooting the Winter Soldiers in the heart rather than the head, thus not killing them instantly, and giving them a chance to heal. Steve's comment about the head is of course a slightly unfunny reference to Infinity War.Tony's double tap comment comes from the movie Zombieland and the practice of firing two shots into the head of a zombie to be sure it is dead. 
> 
> The most awesome thing about writing this sequence was that instead of the horror we got in CW, Tony out of his mind with rage and grief attacking Bucky and he and Steve fighting him, we get Tony and Steve working side by side to help Bucky fight free.
> 
> Sputnik is the shutdown word for the Winter Soldier in the comics, and works as Steve and Tony discuss here. In our verse, Tony found it in the Soviet file on Bucky, as he alluded to back in Sick of All the Insincere, and told Steve too. I think Steve kind of panicked here, so, another reason to be glad he waited for Tony to meet him and Bucky in Bucharest. It was also in the red book Zemo stole, but he had no desire to learn it, may not have even noticed it. Dumbass. The theory is, all the Winter Soldiers were keyed to the same trigger words, but had different shutdown codes, if the later ones even had them.
> 
> I've seen it commented by Russian speaking MCU fans that in CW, Zemo pronounces one of the trigger words wrong! It’s suspected this may have let Bucky shake the conditioning sooner, as we see in the film. In this verse, that’s what happened and it allowed Bucky to fight the control long enough for Tony to shut him down without him hurting himself or anybody else. If he realizes it, Bucky may tell them later, but I'm not sure he comprehended what happened, just that for some reason the control didn’t fully take. Zemo started to say ‘good morning soldier’ expecting to hear ‘ready to comply’ and instead Bucky interrupts; his Russian translates to ‘no, I, I,--NO, no, no’.
> 
> And as for that ending--maybe some things are just fated to happen, however they come about...


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky finish the fight and race to get Tony to help. Hoped-for assistance arrives, and Chrissy makes the acquaintance of the new king of Wakanda.

My connection to the team comms through JARVIS was intact, so I heard Steve cry out Tony’s name. “Buck, cover us! The arc reactor’s busted, with no power to the suit he’ll suffocate if I can’t—get the—helmet off—oof—fuck. Where’s the external release? I know he said he put one in—”

I hit the mute toggle. “Steve, I can talk you through it!” I said, and proceeded to do so. It was easy, if you knew where the catch was (and Tony had hidden it well for just that reason, so the wrong person couldn’t access it). At least it let me do something for a change.

“Got it.” Steve was a quick learner. “There…Tony, whoa, it’s okay, it’s just me—”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Steve panted. “He was dazed, started coming out of it as I was getting the helmet off, and he freaked out for a second. I scared him, I guess. Sorry, pal. No, no! Be still, dammit, yes, you’re hurt, no, you aren’t getting up!”

Afraid to ask but afraid not to, I got out, “How bad, Steve?” 

“I dunno. My shield got him right across the chest. Some broken bones, I’m sure.”

“Shit! His sternum. He and Bruce invented a synthetic bone to put there when he got the arc reactor removed!” I covered my mouth, trying to hold back my own noise of fear.

“We gotta get him out of here, toot sweet. Zemo can wait. Buck! We gotta—”

“I heard ya! Help me out here then, punk!” Bucky hollered, loud enough for the comm to pick it up. I pictured him swinging that metal arm and holding Steve’s shield with his other hand, protecting Steve and Tony from the last two Soldiers. Not ashamed to admit, it was a nice mental image, in spite of the distressing circumstances. 

Tony mumbled something, and Steve replied. “You’re done, buddy, stand down…You’re kidding, right? I could do this all day. Me and Buck, we got thi—”

The last was drowned out by Zemo’s voice yet again, repeating what sounded like the same passage in Russian. “Steve!” Bucky sounded suddenly panicked.

“Yeah, I hear it, I—unfh—what the _fuck_ Bucky??” 

If I could have willed myself through the communication system, it would have happened in those next few frantic moments of no sound except grunts and blows. The foul voice intoning the control words stopped, but the noises of fighting did not. Whether that was good or bad, I had no clue, until the thumping stopped, and Steve yelled, “What the hell did you do, Buck?”

“Busted my eardrums,” Bucky said too loudly. “If I couldn’t hear the triggers, they couldn’t activate me. Think they’re half healed already, got bone conduction to lean on till then. It ain’t clear, but it’ll do. You sound like you did that time ya got into a fight with those guys from Queens an’ they threw you down the manhole.”

Steve laughed briefly. “Okay Tony, let’s have a look at you. You do have manual release on the suit, right? Otherwise, we’re gonna be carrying you outta here like that canned ham Bucky mentioned.” An audible snort was readily identifiable as Tony, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Looks like the suit took the brunt of it. You’d be up a river without a paddle if you’d been here alone, huh?...Careful—” A loud hiss of pain and some impressive swearing from Tony followed. “Think I’ve got an auto-injector of painkiller in this pouch, and I know there are cold packs in the jet’s first aid kit…there, that should help. D’ya think you can stand up and walk? Buck, can you get the suit? Weighs what, Tony, a couple hundred pounds?”

“Pffft,” Bucky scoffed. “Nothin’ doin’. Like carryin’ a bag a’fruit.” A few grunts ensued, probably as Bucky picked up the suit. _He freaking picked up the Iron Man suit_ , I thought, and could not help but be impressed.

“Easy does it, Tony” Steve cautioned. “We need to get you to medical help as fast as we can, but you don’t need to fall. I’m right here with ya, pal. Helen’s in Seoul, I figure we can bust ass and get there in a coupla hours, huh?”

“Yeah.” I could hear Tony clearer now, and I envisioned Steve leaning in to support him, close enough for the comm to pick him up. “You notice she hasn’t been around the compound as much since Thor’s been off world?” There was a pause, which apparently was Steve looking askance at him, because his next words, slightly slurred from the painkiller starting to kick in but still mildly aggravated, were “Wha’? I drink, an’ I know things. Gossip is not a crime.”

“You’re right there,” Steve commented. “Don’t let this fella kid ya, Bucky. Tony’s a regular Hedda Hopper—he’s as big a gossip as any broad in Stark Tower.”

“Yeahhh, tha’s me,” Tony declared, “pourin’ tea with th’ best of ‘em.”

“Do I want to know exactly what that means nowadays?” Bucky asked.

“No, but you’ll probably find out soon enough anyway,” Steve chuckled again. “Watch your step there, Tony. Whew, this wind! It’ll keep you awake till we get to the quinjet. Welcome to Valley Forge, huh Buck? Remember that time north of Antwerp when…” The light banter halted, and Steve sounded completely different when he said, “Uh, can we help you?” For a few moments all I could hear was the howl of the wind, before Steve said, “You’re T’Challa, the Wakandan prince. Or king, rather. We’re sorry for your loss, your majesty.” I had to hand it to Steve; despite the shock of somebody apparently appearing in what they thought was an area deserted except for them and Helmut Zemo, he not only kept his head, but managed to use the appropriate form of address for a monarch, instead of a garden variety royal.

On the other hand, of course, there was Tony with his half-stoned ass. “Heeey. You must be Top Cat. Nat didn’t lie. Not that she would. I mean, ‘course she would, she’s a spy, lying is in the job description, but she wouldn’ admit to it. Don’t tell ‘er I said that, Cap, she’ll kill me, assuming I live through this—” He broke off with another cry of pain.

“Hang on, Tony,” Steve urged. “We’re not gonna let you cash in your chips on us anytime soon—He’s hurt, your majesty, we had a skirmish back there, and we’ve got to get him to help pronto. Dr. Helen Cho in Seoul works with us.”

“I am familiar with her work. Here, let me help you.” T’Challa’s voice was strong enough to follow clearly through Steve’s comm link even through the whipping wind, and flavored with an accent I could definitely call African, but unlike any specific country there that I had ever heard. “I saw part of your fight, at least, before I apprehended the man who perpetrated the act that took my father and the others. He blamed the Avengers for the deaths of his family, and since more powerful forces had tried to kill you and failed, he decided he would drive you to kill each other.”

“What? How?” Steve asked. “He shot the other Soldiers; if he wanted to sic ‘em on us, why bother doing that?”

After a moment’s shuffling, T’Challa replied, “He never intended to use them. They were irrelevant; bait, at best. He laid a trail of clues to implicate Sergeant Barnes, and made it sufficiently sloppy that he hoped it would lead you here, Captain Rogers. The video was meant to reveal to you that Sergeant Barnes was used to kill the Starks. Zemo believed either you would tell Stark, and he would lash out at you; or you would not, for fear of the Accords, which would be far worse, since he then planned to send the video to Stark.”

Tony was still conscious, as indicated when he actually giggled out loud. “Dumb fuck didn’ know I a’ready knew. Found out years ago, told the rest a th’ team, but it was easier t’ just let the official story stand.”

T’Challa made a small noise of amusement. “It appears he did not count on you trusting each other as well as you do. When his plan fell to dust, he tried to turn your Winter Soldier on you, and failing that, set the others on you, since he had even failed in killing them. He had the temerity to express regret,” he went on, his words dripping with disgust, “for my father’s death, to call him a good man, with a dutiful son. A dutiful son, who almost hunted down an innocent man. I owe you apology, Sergeant Barnes. My father’s spirit could never have rested easy if I had falsely judged and condemned you. Vengeance consumed Zemo, and I came too close to letting it consume me. He had a gun, and a bullet intended for himself, but the living are not done with him just yet. I will return him to Wakanda to stand trial, and the other victims will have their chance to see justice done as well.”

That made me think of something, though I hated to interrupt. “Steve,” I said, “could you ask his majesty how he wishes the news of Zemo’s apprehension to be announced? Does he want to do it himself, or the Wakandan law enforcement authorities, or the counter-terrorism task force, or would it be okay for me as representative of the Avengers Initiative to announce it, or what?”

There was a brief exchange in lowered voices, and then I heard T’Challa address me directly. “Miss Everhart, it is an honor to make your acquaintance, after a fashion. I would be pleased if you would make the official announcement, as your friends tell me you can be trusted to handle it with the appropriate care. I have enough to deal with upon my return, when I must start to balance two new roles.”

“Is that about the, uh, cat suit, there?” Bucky asked, sounding unsure but curious.

Now I had to wonder what the man was wearing! “It is that and more. The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. And now, because Zemo murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king.”

He sounded as if about to say more, but a sudden grunt interrupted. “Tony!’ Steve yelped, followed on its heels by a faint familiar clink, and alarm punched me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Tony’s legs gave out,” Steve said. “It’s okay, buddy, I got ya.”

“Yeah, you got me,” Tony grumbled. “Scooped me up like a damsel in distress. ‘M never goin’ anyplace wi’ two super soldiers ever again, swear t’ Thor ’m not…”

“Translated,” Steve helpfully told Bucky, “’thank you very much for saving my butt, Steve, I sure do appreciate it’.”

I guessed the metal noise I had heard was probably Steve tossing his shield to Bucky to hold when he found himself with both arms full of Tony Stark. My guess received confirmation when T’Challa said, “May I?” and a few moments later added, “This shield is vibranium.”

“M’ father made that shield.” From the increased fuzz in Tony’s voice, the painkiller was really taking hold. “Dunno how he came by th’ metal…know it’s from your homeland. Sorry.”

“Considering the circumstances,” that amused note crept back into T’Challa’s voice, “it would be extremely rude for me to confiscate it just now. Besides…Dr. Cho will likely want to see the weapon that wounded you, Mr. Stark.” Another brief interlude of shuffling ended when the Wakandan said, “Sergeant Barnes, this book was being held by Zemo. I do not read Russian, but I suspect it contains information relevant to your past, so in my judgement it is best placed in your custody. We will meet again, gentlemen.”

Nothing but wind came over the comm again, until Bucky said, “Where the hell’d he go?” sounding shaken.

Tony just made a spaced-out “whoooo” noise. Steve clearly tried not to snicker. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment where Tony is down, Steve is frantically trying to get his helmet off, and Bucky is over them both using the shield to protect them, is another of those bits I've been writing my way through this entire series just to get to. :) Any artists out there who would like to immortalize it, hmu!
> 
> Steve's comment to Chris about Tony half conscious and freaking out briefly is a call back to the look of absolute terror on Tony's face in CW when the shield is about to fall. It blew my mind and broke my heart but it was such good acting (really RDJ, please stop) I had to redeem it. shiver.
> 
> When Steve tells Tony ‘you’re done’ what Tony said that we didn’t hear is something similar to Peter’s line from the airport fight in CW. ‘I’m good Rogers, I’m fine. 100%, I'm not done, I'm not… Okay, I'm done. I'm done.' LOL
> 
> Bucky flipped the shield back to Steve and slammed both his hands against his ears, bursting his eardrums. I imagine a trickle of blood running down his jaw, probably from the left ear because of the metal arm's increased resistance. :(
> 
> And I checked, and Tyrion Lannister said 'I drink and I know things' in Game of Thrones season 6 episode 2, which, get this, aired 4 days before CW was released in the US :D so I headcanon that was the last episode Chrissy and Tony binged back in chapter 8. Tony fell asleep during it, but that was the last scene he remembers seeing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Bucky have a little talk, and Chrissy and Pepper have a little longer one.

The next few minutes of sound were Steve settling Tony into the med berth on the quinjet and leaving Bucky to watch while he headed for the cockpit to warm the engines, because Siberia. “Chris,” he said quietly, “can I put you on the main comm speaker to talk to Tony? He’s been great about Bucky, but he’s drifting in and out of consciousness. I had to strap him in, y’know, and I don’t want him to wake up and be disoriented and scared, like he was back there when I was getting his helmet off. Dammit, I could’ve gone my entire life without seeing Tony look at me with that kind of—of naked fear, even knowing he didn’t know what was going on and it wasn’t directed at me."

“Of course, Steve. JARVIS, set me up please?” Upon his acknowledgement I said, “Yoo hoo, this thing on? Can y’all hear me?”

“Heeeey cornbread!” Tony’s goofy voice responded. I tried not to giggle and failed.

“That your gal, Iron Man?” Bucky asked.

“Yeeeaaahh, my bestest buddy ever. Other than Rhodey. And Steve. And…” 

He stopped and I heard an audible sniffle. _Oh shit_ , I thought, and hastened to jump in. “Oh Lord, he is stoned, isn’t he? Last time I saw him like that, it was something else! Tony, don’t you dare start telling embarrassing Rhodey stories. You will poison Buc—I mean Sergeant Barnes’ mind before they even meet, and I will personally pound you.” 

As I hoped, I distracted Tony from emotional lability by running over him verbally. “Chris is our PR person, Buck,” Steve said while opening and closing things. “She’s a goddess of protocol too, apparently. Chris, you couldn’t see King T’Challa’s face, but he seemed quite pleased and impressed you asked for his input about announcing Zemo’s capture.”

“Duh,” I returned. “Of course I asked. It wasn’t really protocol as much as just common sense—it would have been horribly presumptuous not to. You did well too, going with ‘your majesty’ instead of ‘your highness’.”

“Stevie’s got a head for that sort of thing,” Bucky put in.

Tony mumbled something I couldn’t hear. “Well, yeah,” Steve replied with an amused tone. “What’dya think we’d do, leave ya here?” Another mumble received a fond-sounding “But you are too, ya idiot. Here, lemme get this cold pack on your chest, easy…I’ll get Helen on the horn once we get airborne, and if we need to do more to keep you stable until we reach Seoul, she’ll tell us. Chris is gonna keep you two clowns in line while I get us off the ground, set course, and radio Russian air traffic control we’re coming through at top speed. A couple of sonic booms, small price to pay to get Tony back into one piece.” 

“Just keeping Tony in line is a tall order, let alone adding your buddy, Steve, but I will do my best,” I teased. “Now, listen up, hot rod, you lay still and behave yourself. Just remember, not allowed to die. Now that we actually know a real wizard, I bet he knows somebody Pepper could have raise you so she could kill you herself if you pull that kind of shit.”

“Who’s Pepper?” Bucky asked.

“My other best friend, and Tony’s girlfriend.”

“Huh. Thought you said Christine here was your gal, Iron Man.”

“Hmm?” Tony grunted. “Ohhh yeah, back in the day, your ‘gal’ was your girlfriend, right. Nope, no, me and Chrissy, we aren’t like that.”

“Actually, they remind me more of me and you, Buck,” Steve chimed in.

“I do have a name, y’know, snowflake,” Tony roused to add. “You don’t have to keep callin’ me Iron Man.” 

“Yeah, well, when I grew up, it was kinda familiar to call people by their first names, and we just met, and callin’ you Stark, it’s too much like…your old man.”

Nothing but the sounds of Steve working up front came over the comm for a minute. “It wasn’t your fault,” Tony said, his speech abruptly clear. “I saw what HYDRA did to you, to make you their tool.” 

“You saw--?” Bucky sounded shocked, and then resigned. “But I still did it.”

“You think I can’t tell the difference between a weapon and the person holding it? Maybe we won’t ever be bosom buddies, but I don’t blame you.” The noise that seemed to be Tony shifting was immediately followed by a huff and more swearing. 

“ _Tony_ ,” I said warningly.

“You heard the lady, Iron—um, Tony. Hold still there,” Bucky ordered, then said, “Uh, you know a wizard, miss? Like, Oz, or what?”

“Or what,” I returned gleefully. “Oh, catching you up is going to be so much fun, Sergeant Barnes, sir.”

“Hah, nobody’s ever called me sir.”

“Wait, wait!” Steve called. “What about that blonde in Amiens? The one with the—"

“Shuddup, punk!”

Tony laughed and then yelped. “Fuck, don’t make me laugh, that shit hurts!”

Amid a chorus of apologies, Steve said, “Okay, JARVIS is flying us, and I’m calling Helen. Hate to wake her, but can’t help it.”

“I’ll sign off then,” I said. “I’ll call the team and bring them up to speed, and call a press briefing. Tony, rest. Let the painkiller do its job. Steve, please let us know once y’all reach Seoul and Helen’s had a chance to look him over.”

“I’ll make sure he does,” Bucky promised, unexpected but welcome. “Your buddy’ll be fine if we got anything to say about it.”

On that hopeful note, I logged off and thanked JARVIS. Before I started work, I took one more moment and pulled up on a screen the Smithsonian’s virtual version of the Captain America exhibit. My mental screen was split, between the Bucky Barnes of the Howling Commando days, with his boyish charm, and the one I had seen today. He looked and sounded wary, but when Tony reached out, he seemed so eager to reach back. I determined to do whatever I could to help him reclaim his life and get back the devilish glint in the eye of those old photographs.

I jumped on the phone then, calling Vienna to catch Nat and Sam up, leaving Rhodey a message, and calling Clint’s to pass along the news—and reassure an anxious group. It appeared Russian air traffic control had sprung a leak, and Steve’s call stating an Avenger had a medical emergency had been released to the press. While the public speculated wildly, it didn’t take much simple math for the team members in seclusion to figure out the most likely victim was Tony. (My call came just in time; Laura said Wanda and Vision were about to start stress-cooking, and she wasn’t sure her half-remodeled kitchen would survive a joint culinary assault by an android and a witch.)

A mass text and email burst informed the members of the press corps who covered the Avengers what time to meet me down in the press room so I could update them on current events. I set it for a couple of hours away, early evening, to give myself time to catch my breath, and time to do one other thing that had to be done before I said anything to the public. I spent a few minutes calming myself, organizing my thoughts, and praying for wisdom; then I pulled up my contacts list, and hit Pepper’s name. It should be early morning where she was, and she’d be getting ready to start her day. When she answered, though, the background noise sounded like engines. “Hey, Pep. Where are you?”

“Heading home! I had one more set of meetings today—tomorrow? Oh, I hate the international date line—anyway, the VP we were supposed to meet with in Singapore got food poisoning, some bad fish, allegedly, and cancelled. So, I took a power nap and decided to come back early and surprise Tony. We’re, where are we?” A background voice offered the information. “Oh, that’s a big help…a bunch of coordinates that make no sense to me, and ‘north of Hawaii’. Don’t tell Tony, though, please?”

“That’s…not gonna be the problem. Have you heard the news about the bombing at the UN meeting in Austria?” She hadn’t, with her haste to get back to New York, so I gave her a quick summary. “So where we are now is, Steve and his pal are hauling ass to Seoul to get Tony to Helen’s lab. I’m betting the artificial sternum is broken, though I’m praying not; probably some other broken bones, maybe some bruised organs. I hope to God his heart is okay. It’s—he’s not critical, at least I think not, thank the Lord, but from all indications, he’s hurt pretty bad.” I stopped to take a breath; just throwing all that out there made my heart clench up with concern, so I could only imagine what Pepper might be thinking, trying to process it all. After a long silence, though, I started to wonder how much she actually had processed. “Pep? You there?”

“I—Yeah. I was just thinking, when I first found out about Iron Man, Tony was fixated on getting back the SI weapons Obadiah had sold. Nothing else mattered. I told him I was quitting, because he was going to kill himself and I wouldn’t be a part of it. But I stayed. I stayed, and I worried. That morning he told the world he was Iron Man, I remember he said if he had a secret identity, he’d have a girlfriend who knew, and was ‘wildly conflicted’ I think he said—” She let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “She’d be worried, but proud of the man he had become. And you know what: as flippant as he tried to make it sound, I think he meant every word. He was speaking what he wished for. He knew I would worry and he couldn’t stop me, but he wanted, so much, to make me proud.”

“He still does, Pep, I know he does. He wants to make the world better, but you _are_ his world.” Here it came. With one quick prayer sent up on a breath, I forged ahead. “He’s been a wreck since you left, hon, I’ve got to be honest with you. He told me the reason you rescheduled this trip and left so suddenly was because you didn’t want to make any more personal appearances with him, and so you could end things with him quietly when you got back, and I just couldn't see you--"

“What?” Pepper sounded completely at a loss. “Uh. No. Are you sure that’s what he meant? Because if so, I don’t know where that would have come from. I told him before I left that I thought the timing was good, that I could use a break. You know I told you that after the affair with Killian, I understood, a lot more than I had, how he felt about the suits, and even more so since he started making mine; but it’s still not always easy for me to deal with. I needed to figure out how to say some things I need to say to him, and I figured this would give me some time to myself, and some space to gather my thoughts. I’ve been talking a lot with Laura—she had to think a lot of things through before she was ready to commit to Clint, even though she was in intelligence too, and being able to pick her brain helped me immeasurably. Too, I’ve been thinking about what you said at your mom’s funeral, about how we put things off too long. So I decided I’d use this trip to get myself organized, and then sit Tony down and talk to him, tell him I _can_ live without him but I don’t _want_ to.”

“Damn,” I sighed. “That’s a relief on all accounts. I hated that I couldn’t help you more, but it stands to reason Laura would be able to relate, looking at things from the inside. It's good to know you feel settled. I know Tony doesn’t want to hurt you, ever, and I think you’re right, all he’s ever wanted is for you to be proud of him. But you also know, he has this—this drive to protect, to use what he’s got for the best purpose. And this is gonna sound awful, but I think in some way, knowing that you worry? It reassures him that you love him, that you care about him.”

“He generally assumes the best of people, but he always assumes the worst about himself.”

“Yes, yes he does. Which means, sis, you need to come straighten your boy out before he convinces everybody that you are never coming back to him. Hell, he’s convinced himself of that already. He’s not trying to get sympathy, clearly, not like that’s something he would do; he hasn’t broached the subject—he’s only told anybody if they asked flat out, like me or Steve. It’s not like he announced it to the team or anything, but, yeah, he is literally expecting you to break up with him when you get home, and if he was here and you had shown up out of the blue today…”

“Oh my God,” Pepper gasped. “No! He—ooh, I could beat him! It’s been _two weeks_ , Chrissy, why didn’t you tell me??”

“If you recall, madame CEO, you have been damned hard to get ahold of these two weeks, and I’ve kind of been racing around with a hosepipe putting out fires left, right and center.” I launched into an account of the Accords and the associated issues, not exhaustive, but definitely more detailed. She was on a plane, for crying out loud, what else was she going to do but listen to me bitch? (Okay, yes, she had other things she could have been doing, I knew that, but she did need to know this stuff.) “When I tried to call, you were in bed, and when you were working, I was falling into bed. And this wasn’t exactly the sort of thing one leaves on one’s friend’s voicemail, I thought, and I wasn’t even sure I should stick my nose into y’all’s personal business.”

“But—but—I flew over Seoul, earlier, I could have landed and stayed—”

“If we’d known this was going to happen, and I don’t know about you but I don’t know any soothsayers that good, yet.”

“If…if, if, if! Chrissy, if he had died out there in— _fucking Siberia_ —he would have died thinking I—” Oh, now the rubber was meeting the road. Pepper rarely swore, and when she did, it was always heartfelt. “We could turn around—but no, I think by now we’re closer to home than to there.” There was another brief spell of mumbling, probably Pepper confirming their location. “I’m gonna kill him,” she said flatly when she returned to the phone, and I knew she didn’t mean her pilot.

“I hear you. In all fairness, I did warn him that Stephen Strange probably knows somebody who would resurrect him if he died, so you could kill him personally.” A soggy giggle replied. “He was mouthing off as usual when I got off the comms, and reassuring Bucky, of all things—who promised me he’d make sure we got updated ASAP, so we should hear something anytime.”

“Bucky did, huh?”

“Yeah. He seems really nice for a formerly brainwashed super-assassin, and those are words I never imagined myself saying.”

 _“Bucky_.” Pepper’s voice took on a teasing note. “Not Barnes, not Sergeant. Bucky. Who, if I recall correctly, you once told me was your favorite Howling Commando as a kid.”

“Pep! You aren’t—damn, I haven’t met the guy—I have to call him something—stop it!!” She giggled again. “Well, at least you’re getting some amusement at my expense. That’s encouraging. I guess I can sacrifice my dignity for my besties.”

Even her sigh sounded lighter. “Still worried. Still want to kill Tony.”

“Course you do. Just—come on home, girlfriend. Come home and tell your man you love him, that’s all I know to tell you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that as of this chapter, the tags 'Team Pepperony maybe' and 'breakup?' are gone, for obvious reasons. :)
> 
> Bonus points if anybody can guess what Tony said to Steve on the jet that Steve replied to with "but you are too." Hint, it's another supremely painful moment in canon that I reclaimed to suit my own purposes.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy talks with Steve and Bucky, and handles the press, but her calm is shaken when Ross pressures her. Backup arrives just in time.

Steve called as I was sliding out of the shower to suit up for the press conference. Our guess had been right; the synthetic bone our science bros had created for the surgery to remove the arc reactor and reconstruct Tony’s chest had cracked, though Helen opined that it had actually held up better than a natural sternum would have under the impact of the shield. Her rebuilt Cradle was hard at work regenerating that damage, along with bruised lungs and three fractured ribs. That seemed to be the worst of it, though, and I breathed a prayer of thanks.

“Better yet,” Steve said, sounding thrilled, “by the time Helen finished examining Tony and started to calibrate the Cradle, a courier arrived from Wakanda, with a package of vibranium! Helen’s using the, what did she call it, Buck? Sorry, he’s the science nerd, not me—wait, you jerk, gimme that back—”

After what sounded remarkably like two kids scuffling over the phone, Bucky came on. “Hey, uh, hi, Miss Everhart."

"Please! Call me Christine at least, Sergeant.”

“Only if you call me Bucky. Otherwise you sound like you’re gonna try to salute me or somethin’. Anyway, the lady doc says it’s nano-molecular functionality. Long’s she knows what that means, I’m good with it. And the vibranium, she knows how to work that into her gadget, and make Tony’s bones super strong where they’re broken.”

“Same tech she used to make Vision,” Steve yelled from off-pickup. “Ultron’ud short himself out if he was alive, knowing the hustle he tried to pull ended up saving the guy he hated.”

“Poetic justice,” I agreed. “Put Steve back on for a sec, would you please, Bucky? And—thank you for everything you’ve done for Tony, and I’m looking forward to meeting you.” 

Eek. Should I have gone there? “Um…you betcha. Nothin’ I wouldn’t do for anybody I was fightin’ alongside. And, likewise. I wanna meet you too.”

Once Steve was back on the phone, I caught him up on where everybody was (Nat had texted me she and Sam were almost ready to head back from Austria). He told me it would be a couple of hours before Helen’s work was done and the sedation flushed out of Tony’s body; the pain of the fractured breastbone had necessitated a light anesthetic, so he could lie still while the Cradle worked its magic. “It’ll probably be early in the morning by the time we get back to the Tower. If Tony’s feeling okay, he’ll whine for your biscuits and gravy, I bet.”

“I’d call that a sucker bet,” I grinned. “Listen, Steve, when he comes out from under, please tell him Pepper’s on her way home; she’ll be waiting when he gets here; and she loves him. He’ll argue, you know he will, but—she’s really upset, thinking he could’ve died believing she didn’t love him anymore, you know? So just repeat those three things, okay?”

“Okay. So she’s taking him back?”

“Oh, there was never a breakup! She just needed some time to think. Tony being Tony, all he heard was that word ‘break’, and that is seriously what he believed happened.”

“Figures,” Steve sighed. “Sure, I’ll do my best.”

The press briefing didn’t last long, mostly because it was getting late and I was beat and had only eaten some cheese and crackers and a frozen yogurt pop since morning. It’s not as though it took that long to announce that the suspect in the Vienna bombing had been apprehended by an international force, anyhow. “The suspect Mr. Zemo’s timing was exceptionally bad,” I said dryly. “Sergeant James Barnes, as it happened, was in protective custody at the time of the bombing, so could not have been responsible for the attack. The prosthetic appliances used to impersonate him were located and secured. Other evidence found with them led investigators in Vienna to theorize that Mr. Zemo had discovered the location of a cache of HYDRA weapons and was en route to take possession of them, probably to use them for purposes unknown. Sergeant Barnes knew that location from his time held captive by HYDRA and rendered invaluable assistance in that regard. 

“A joint team comprised of several Avengers and representatives of Royal Wakandan law enforcement utilized a provision being currently incorporated into the Sokovia Accords, which allows for timely pursuit of a fleeing fugitive who poses imminent threat to others. That status was confirmed when the suspect and his confederates engaged the team using deadly force. One team member was injured; as of the last update I received just before coming out to talk with you, their injuries are serious, but they are receiving treatment and are in stable condition.

“At present, Mr. Zemo is in Wakandan custody. He will stand trial for the murder of King T’Chaka, and the home nations of the other victims of the UN attack will be assisted to file for extradition to their courts. The Avengers send their deepest sympathies to the Wakandan royal family, and the families of the others lost in this vicious act of terrorism.”

I must have addressed some things the reporters thought they’d have to hound me for, because there weren’t as many follow-up questions as I expected. I did have to bob and weave a bit on the subject of who was injured in Siberia, but I stood firm that that was nobody’s business. “Medical privacy. We do have laws here about that. HIPAA, remember?” I gently scolded. That got an out-loud guffaw from the Buzzfeed guy who I had taken down after Sokovia; he returned my surprised little half-smile with a cheeky grin of his own, and his attitude adjustment appeared to be permanent.

With a word to JARVIS to keep me up to date on the various issues simmering, I crawled into bed for what I hoped would be a few hours’ power nap…which was rudely interrupted shortly after midnight by a call from a surly Thaddeus Ross demanding an immediate private briefing. “I have nothing new to share that I didn’t already give earlier, Mr. Secretary,” I grumbled into the phone. “Check youtube, I’m sure it’s already been posted. We’ll have more info in the morning.” _Sorry your little gambit backfired so spectacularly,_ I wanted to say, but managed to restrain myself.

My phone vibrated again shortly before dawn. It was a text from Steve. ::Tony’s groggy, but wants to come home. Heart set on those biscuits, Helen says ok. LOL. We’ll be about 3 hrs to the west coast, 3 more to NYC. Tony says if he had rebuilt his house he would parachute out over Malibu.::

::of course he does, the goofball:: I replied, profoundly thankful that Tony was alive to be a goofball. ::he give you much grief about Pep?::

::not a bit, which bothers me, if I’m honest::

It bothered me a bit too, but I suspected I knew why Tony wasn’t starting a fight; he was sure he knew Steve was wrong. _Pepper will set him straight_ was my last thought before my lights went out again.

Morning was breaking when I got up and headed down to the team floor. We hadn’t used it much since half of the team and more had decamped to the compound, but it felt good to get into making several dozen biscuits and all the accompaniments.

“Miss Everhart,” JARVIS spoke up, “the Stark Industries jet has landed at the airport, and Miss Potts and Mr. Hogan are en route to the Tower. Agent Romanoff and Mr. Wilson are approximately an hour from touchdown here.”

“Great! Thanks, hon. Could you start the ovens pre-heating, please?” I mentally weighed the pros and cons of calling another presser right after breakfast, versus waiting until later in the day, and had about settled on the latter when JARVIS called out again.

“Miss Everhart!” if it was possible for an AI to sound alarmed, he did. “I note that Thaddeus Ross has arrived in the Tower’s lobby and is demanding to speak with Sir or yourself.”

“Me? Oh shit. I can’t—” I glanced down at myself in a worn Graceland t-shirt and pajama pants with slices of pizza on them. “What does he want, I told him I’d already said all I knew—” I started to perspire; sweat blurred my eyes, and my hands went so hot and shaky I imagined for a moment I could feel fuzzy sparks at my fingertips. 

“Chrissy!” I spun and all but threw myself at Pepper as she emerged from the team elevator. “Hey! Hey, what’s wrong?” She pulled back and frowned at me, one hand on my forehead. “Are you running a fever?”

“No, I—maybe I’m having a really unique panic attack? I don’t know. Ross is downstairs, and he’s wanting Tony or me. He doesn’t know Tony went after Zemo with Steve and Bucky, or that he got hurt. He was on my ass last night insisting on a private briefing, I wouldn’t give it to him, and—shit, Pep, I’ve heard rumors about this supermax prison, Ross’ pet project, and I have no desire to get locked up on the bottom of the damn ocean!”

“Nobody’s getting locked up anywhere,” she snapped. “Go. Get back to your cooking. I’ve been almost tasting that gravy for the past two hours. JARVIS, please have whoever is working the reception desk tell Secretary Ross I will see him in a few minutes.” With another quick hug Pep loped back toward the elevator, calling for JARVIS to run her up to the penthouse. 

Only a couple of minutes passed before my phone vibrated in my pocket. Shoulders tight, I pulled it out, glanced at the screen and slumped in relief. “Rhodey,” I sighed into the receiver.

“Baby girl! No offense, but you haven’t sounded that happy to hear from me in a while.” In the background I could hear the rush of wind; War Machine was coming home from Morocco, I surmised. “Judging from that message you left though, I can see why! What the hell is going on?”

Quickly I filled him in, ending with Ross laying siege to the Tower and Pepper going down to take him on. “I know Tony said he wanted to bring her in on the Accords negotiation, but I don’t think he meant like this! I need to go down there and take this over; I should never have put her in that spot—”

“Whoa, pull up, Chrissy. You and I both know stopping Pepper is about like stopping a train.” His voice tightened. “Stay put, don’t interrupt them. I’m gonna make a call and I’ll be there in a little while. Sounds like it might be time for me to call in a certain marker.”

There was no telling who Rhodey knew, so I tried to let it go. How long had I preached to Tony that he couldn’t take responsibility for everything that happened in his orbit, and now here I was trying to do the same thing. It’s never easy to take one’s own advice, but I did my best. About the time I was considering contributing my last jar of my aunt Wavie’s spiced plum and jalapeno jam to the occasion, the elevator announced arrivals. 

Nat and Sam looked tired, but fatigue did not stop either of them from wanting to roll downstairs and roll all over Ross when I filled them in. The only thing that saved him was Pepper’s return, in an obviously thrown-on business suit that still made her look sharp enough to cut, and her weirdly cheery demeanor. “That was fun,” she told me after greeting Sam and hugging Nat. “Good thing I downloaded all the information on these Accords that you put up on AvengersOnline, Chrissy, and went over it on the flight back. Those are some good modifications, much needed, and I pointed out to him exactly why they were. I also gave him a little verbal sketch of what an absolute clusterfuck trying to enforce them in their original form would have been, just so he knew how close he came to utter disaster. The fact that I was able to do that while politely tearing him a new asshole was, well…”

“Just a bonus?” Sam guessed with a big grin while starting coffee.

“Something like that.” Pepper matched his grin. “And then, as he was leaving trying to clutch the last shreds of his self-importance, his phone rang. He answered it, and the next thing I heard was ‘yes, Mr. President, no sir, I can explain—'”

“Ohhhh Lord,” I gasped. “Rhodey, you little shit.” Pepper’s eyes widened in mutual realization, and so did Nat and Sam’s when we explained how President Ellis ended up owing Rhodey a favor.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The guys return from Siberia. Chrissy finally gets to meet Bucky, and plans for his future start to be made.

Rhodey confirmed our guess when he arrived at the Tower a short time later. “Matthew trusted Ross not to let this get personal, and he sounded pretty damn disappointed when he got off the phone. I got a feeling some ass-chewing is in the offing.” After one sniff of the air wafting from the kitchen, he completely changed the subject and declared he was staying until there was no country ham left. Considering he had just indirectly revealed he was still on a first-name basis with the President, I didn’t feel inclined to argue, not that I would have anyway.

Pepper trotted back upstairs to clean up and change into comfortable clothes for breakfast, but I still had extra hands willing to help, so I was able to step away from ovens and burners long enough to make some needed calls of my own. First was another blast notification for an update press briefing in early afternoon; that would give the guys time to get back and me time to discuss with the team precisely what could and should be made public. The next call was to update our underground Avengers, who, I discovered, were keeping Clint busy flipping pancakes (though Pietro swore he would be ready for second helpings by the time Strange portaled them back, and considering Quicksilver’s metabolism, I suspected he was right).

After descending on the first round of breakfast, Sam headed for a shower and nap in a spare suite, and Nat excused herself to call Clint. Rhodey was cleaning his plate, and the second batch of biscuits was just going into the oven, when the elevator’s ding was followed by the blessedly familiar sound of Tony bitching. Said bitching was cut short within a couple of beats, replaced by a happy yelp of “Sweet mother of uranium, I smell biscuits!”

“As requested,” I replied just as cheerfully as Tony appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked tired and a bit pale. His usual undersuit was replaced by a neon green K-Pop t-shirt and scrub pants that were too long, and his right eye sported an impressive shiner. The grin was limited slightly by a split lip, but it was still a relief to see. I raised my hand for a high five, but got hugged instead. “Whoa, how’s your chest? Should you be doing this?”

For reply, Tony actually knocked on his chest, the doofus. “Tough as Steve’s shield now, thanks to O’Malley the Wakandan alley cat. And no, Cap, we are not going to test that out. I respect Helen’s work too much.”

“Wasn’t even gonna suggest it,” Steve replied from behind him, a relieved and expectant little smile on his face. Behind him, in turn, I caught a glimpse of another burly figure, but that one shifted the next moment to allow a smaller but very determined approach—Pepper.

Tony was greeting Rhodey while stealing his last couple of home fries and declaring his intention to leave no breakfast behind. “It’ll hold,” I interrupted. “Right now, looks like you have an urgent meeting.” I shifted my gaze to Pepper, who looked torn between flinging her arms around her man and knocking his block off. “He’s all yours, sis. Just try to have him back before everything gets cold.”

“Pep!” Tony’s warm greeting morphed into a startled squeak when she grabbed him and hauled him out of the kitchen and toward the elevator. “Potts—Potts? Hey, I’m gravely injured here, the walking wounded, I know Chrissy told you I was at death’s door, take it easy, I got—"

Rhodey and I exchanged looks and chuckles before I hugged Steve, glad to have him back safely. “Well,” I said as he headed for the food and I turned to face the third new arrival, “since the rest of the team is kinda scattered, I guess I’ll appoint myself official greeter. Welcome to Avengers Tower, Sergeant Barnes.”

The man was a study in contrasts; he was big and broad, built like a brick shithouse, but he stood drawn into himself, ill at ease and almost shy. Over the shoulder of his metal arm was slung, incongruously, a battered knapsack. His light eyes moved around the kitchen restlessly, as would be expected from somebody who had had to watch his back for years, but when I spoke, they flicked up to meet mine, and a cautious half-smile quirked his scruffy handsome face. “Hi. I said to call me Bucky, right? If you want to, that is.”

“Oops, right, sorry.” I put out a hand before I thought, remembering too late how unsure of vintage mores I had been when I first met Steve. _Bucky’s been out in the world, though, at least some,_ I thought; _but then again, I bet he hasn’t had much positive touching—but if I pull back he’ll think I don’t want him touching me—oh shoot--_ I second-guessed myself half a dozen times within the span of a breath or two, until a large and unexpectedly gentle hand met mine for a brief squeeze. “Now,” I said briskly, praying my ears and cheeks weren’t as red as they felt, “come help your plate, before your boy over here eats us out of house and home. Slow down, oh spangled one!” I smacked Steve with a spatula—he looked like he might just give up and lap the gravy straight out of the bowl like a big hound dog. “I promised Pepper there’d be plenty left for her and Tony after she got through chewing him out.”

“Chewing him out?” When I looked around from finally getting my own food, both Rhodey’s eyebrows were hiked. “Not that I’m surprised, but I missed that part of this saga.” His eyes flicked past me and took on a wary cast I knew well; he was sliding into protective mode, though this time, I surmised, it wasn’t me his hackles were rising about, but Tony. “Barnes, huh?”

Quick introductions were made. I was simultaneously pleased and appalled when Bucky managed another smile and said, “Rhodes. You’re the buddy Tony was tellin’ wild tales about. Medication sure makes him chatty.” I facepalmed, but as an ice-breaker, it seemed to do the trick; Rhodey barked out a laugh and then demanded to know exactly what filthy lies his Tones had told on him. We settled at the table, dug in, and shared information. After Rhodey shared his version of the hijinks in question, Bucky began to loosen up and tell a few tales of his own. From the sound of it, he and Steve had gotten into at least as much trouble in Brooklyn in their day as Rhodey and Tony had at MIT.

Bucky ate as heartily as Steve, though almost exclusively with his right hand, keeping the left in his lap. Curious as to whether it didn’t function fully, or he was just self-conscious, I made a casual point of handing him a jar of jam to that side, and watched with avid interest as the metal fingers closed deftly around it. “That’s cool,” I offered. “Bet it’s easy to get stuck lids off with.”

His answering expression was half awkward smile, half grimace. “Needs work. I can do basic maintenance on it myself, but it’s stiffened up some since I, y’know…”

“Escaped HYDRA?” Natasha walked in, her gaze fixed on Bucky and at its most unreadable. “ _Zdravstvujtye, Zima.”_

Very carefully, he set the jam jar on the table, as if wanting both hands free for whatever might happen. “ _Zdravstvujtye, Natalia.”_

I looked from Steve’s interested expression to Rhodey’s face looking probably as baffled as mine. “Well, we’ve gotten to the part of the script I missed,” I remarked.

“We’ve met,” Nat said shortly, and that shortness sounded as though it carried a lot of baggage. _So it would appear, girlfriend,_ I thought, _and maybe done more than that_. There was definitely a crackle in the air! I slapped down a fleeting twinge of foolish disappointment. It was nice that somebody else Bucky knew was here; it might make him feel less uncomfortable. On the other hand, the strain between them could have been cut with any of the dozen or so knives Nat probably had on her person at the moment. Damn, what a murder-couple they would make. _Knock it off, matchmaker!_ I ordered myself. The man needed all the help he could get to put a real life back together from the ruins his captors had left him with, and trying to set him up on a date was not that kind of help.

Fortunately, the odd tension was broken when Tony and Pepper reappeared in the kitchen doorway. Pep’s eyes were red, and my heart hiccupped for a second in my chest, until I saw them both holding onto each other like death itself couldn’t pry them apart with a vibranium crowbar. Tony was positively livid. “Fuck Ross, fuck him in the goddamn ear. What the hell, Chrissy, why didn’t you tell somebody he was hassling you??”

“I did,” I said coolly around a mouthful of scrambled eggs, with a nod toward Pepper and then Rhodey. To Steve’s baffled look, I added, “Ross has been stirring the turd, which we kind of expected. When he showed up this morning demanding intel, Pep raked him over the coals, and Rhodey’s friend in very high places is probably salting his wounds as we speak.”

“We handled it, Tony,” Pepper soothed him while she steered him toward the table, then stopped in her tracks. Her eyes and Bucky’s met, and he got to his feet, moving clumsily for the first time since he had walked in. 

Tony didn’t notice at first, still fuming about Ross but winding down. “Team Stark strikes again, Miss Potts?” he said, tossing a shiny grin her way, before the scrape of Bucky’s chair caught his attention. “Olaf? You full already? I figured that tin arm was hollow.”

“Yeah, I’m great. Thank you, Christine.” I smiled and sternly told my heart to stop going pitter-pat when he smiled back. “I figured I’d have to turn myself in, go to a SHIELD lockup prob’ly, but with this guy Ross makin’ trouble for you, and me still subject to any HYDRA leftovers who memorized the triggers, I’m thinkin’ it’s safer if I head out now—”

“No, it isn’t.” Steve shoved his own chair back and stood, with the stubborn set to his jaw that by now everybody even remotely associated with the Avengers knew well. “End of the line, Buck, remember? Lost ya once, well twice really; not gonna lose you again. Yeah, the authorities need to know, but you aren’t going to prison for things that weren’t your fault. We’ll get an apartment—I don’t expect Tony’d be comfortable with you here, but something near here so I can meet up with the team when I’m needed. Compound’s way out in the countryside, too far from things. Clint owns a building in Bed-Stuy, I bet he’s got space. I’ll set you up with the lady therapist I go to—she’s great, you’ll like her a bunch, and if anybody can figure out how to undo the mess HYDRA put in your head it’s her.”

“Not to contradict, Cap, but remember, you do have a rent-controlled crib right here,” Tony retorted and pointed a butter-smeared table knife for emphasis (Nat blinked, and I had to admit it was a hoot that, with both her and Bucky in the room, it was _Tony_ waving a blade around). “I agree he’s not going to any damn jail; that’s a crawling terror in and of itself, and let’s be honest Frosty, you probably have more than a whiff of PTSD, so you don’t need to be locked up anywhere. And you’re right the compound’s too far away, Steve, if you or he needed anything, and even I wouldn’t ask Dr. Rausch to drive that far, but she’d make house calls here.”

Bucky looked stunned. “Tony, everybody in this building would be in danger if I lost it. Who works here? Who lives here? You don’t have to put them at risk because—I dunno, why, because you want to prove you forgave me for what I—”

“You didn’t do anything, Ice-T, other than be a fucking human being and break after twenty damn years of professional torture. I’ve known for two years what happened to my mom and dad, what those bastards made you do. You’re done nothing of your own will to hurt me—hell, you hurt yourself to protect me. I’m sure as shit not turning my back on you. Steve, don’t get all noble. like you don't want to—inflict his presence on me, for fuck’s sake. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your thoughtfulness, I do—and no, I’m not being sarcastic, but to paraphrase Chrissy, I’m a grown-ass man and I make my own damn decisions. I'm fine, and we’re best equipped here in the tower to keep him safe till we can figure out how to completely break the programming. In his case, the safest hands really are our own.”

“He’s right,” I spoke up. “With JARVIS here, even if you somehow got triggered, Bucky, we and you would be protected—and how often have you been triggered since you got free, anyway? Not much, I bet, and I also bet it’d be even less if you were in a place where you felt safe, surrounded by people trying to help you, people you know and trust, or can come to trust.”

Then, of all things, Pepper chimed in. “Sergeant Barnes, Tony told me what you did in Siberia. There’s no way I could not reach out to help you, knowing that.”

Bucky took a breath as though to argue, then jumped and flattened against the nearest wall with a knife in his hand (yep, way too much like Nat; that sucker had appeared from nowhere) when the sparkler-spark of a portal ring materialized by the window. Clint’s head poked through and looked around at all of us more or less frozen where we sat or stood. “I’d ask if this is a bad time,” he deadpanned, “but is there ever not one of those with Avengers?”

Tony sighed. “Not really, Legolas, good to see ya. Send the kittens through, everybody needs to have a say in this, even though it _is_ my building, you know…”

Pepper poked Tony with her fork, then calmly resumed eating, looking remarkably laidback about the whole situation. The Maximoffs and Vision stepped through the portal; Steve introduced them and calmed Bucky with a quick explanation of Strange’s powers. “Magic?” Bucky sputtered, but his knife vanished into wherever it had come from. “That’s the wizard you meant, Christine, you weren’t blowin’ smoke up my ass? Damn. I don’t like that shit one bit.”

“See?” Tony pointed out, not apologizing for the spray of biscuit crumbs that accompanied his words. “Man after my own heart. Hates magic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Nat only said hello when they met...


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team agrees with Tony's plan for Bucky to stay at the tower. Pepper explains how she set Tony straight. Bucky starts to settle in; Chrissy pitches in to help him, while pushing back against her attraction to him.

Pietro headed, as expected, for the food. Strange peered through to make sure no stray parts were dangling; I gave him a smile and a wave, and he responded in kind before closing his portal. Tony summarized the situation to the new arrivals, and to my mild surprise, Wanda instantly grasped it. “You were afraid of me, Tony, because I hurt you and I meant to,” she nodded, “even though it was because I was wrongly informed. It was altogether reasonable for you to not want me living under your roof until you felt sure you could trust me and my powers. But if you aren’t afraid of Zima, and you do not believe he means you or anyone else harm, then it does seem practical for him to stay here.”

Tony smiled. “Thanks, Sabrina, I’m glad you get it,” he said simply.

Bucky shifted where he leaned against the kitchen counter. “Powers?” he asked Wanda hesitantly. “You got magic too? Wait,” he cut himself short and frowned at her, then at her brother shoveling biscuits and gravy into his face. “You called me Zima…yeah. I remember you kids. HYDRA had you, someplace, I remember seeing you.” They affirmed, and compared notes. Bucky’s shoulders slumped. “I shoulda gotten you out of there,” he said sadly.

Wanda put a small hand on his metal shoulder, and he barely disguised his startled flinch at the touch. I glanced over at Steve and found him looking back at me. It looked as though my guess about Bucky’s issues with touch was on the money; maybe we could implement the same op we’d used on Tony. “We had been lied to and manipulated, until we thought we wanted to be there,” she told him. “You are not to blame.”

The team talked out some details. Well, most of the team; Nat quietly ate and listened to everybody’s points. Rhodey sighed heavily, but when I reminded him Pepper and I were both grownups too and understood risk, he decided if Tony felt the tower was a safe place for Bucky, he was okay with it. “And Tony gripes about me mother-henning him,” I kidded.

“I mother-henned him decades before you met him, baby girl,” Rhodey fired back. With a grin and one more swig of coffee, he departed with orders to contact him if Ross got out of hand again.

For a few moments, the kitchen was silent, until Pepper finished her juice and clapped her hands. “This was great as always, Chrissy, thank you. Now, Sergeant—”

“Bucky, please, ma’am.”

“Pepper, then, not ma’am, Bucky. Come on, I’ll show you around the Tower and you can decide which guest suite you want. I’m guessing you’ll want to be on Steve’s floor? Steve, I’ll get housekeeping to freshen your quarters too, since I assume you’ll want to stay for a while…”

She swept out the door, in command as always. Tony stared after her with a look of absolute adoration, and it was only by the thinnest of margins that I managed not to laugh out loud. He’s always loved the way she takes charge.

The press briefing in the afternoon was another short statement, just letting the world at large know all Avengers were home safely, and the Accords would be settled in the near future. “Think about it this way,” I said into the cameras. “Imagine some crazy thing happens, and you find yourself with an enhanced power—or your child, if you prefer. If you or someone you loved were subject to the directives of the Sokovia Accords, would you want them to have been thrown together in haste, by people without enhancements, or worked out over time including input from those walking in your shoes? I think the answer is pretty clear.”

Beyond that, I spent the rest of that time at the podium parrying more nosy questions. No, I was not at liberty to disclose any information regarding Sergeant James Barnes, and no, I knew nothing about the Wakandan customs of royal succession. I conceded I had spoken with Crown Prince T’Challa on one occasion to arrive at an acceptable resolution for the public announcement of Zemo’s apprehension. When I had more information to pass along, I promised I would do so forthwith.

When he found out about the Hulk booth, Bucky was all for moving in there, if he was going to stay here. Steve put his foot down and refused, Pepper told me on the roof that night. “It seems like…Steve doesn’t want to accept how Bucky was changed by what he went through,” she said contemplatively. “I can’t exactly blame him. Who would, really? I was the same when Tony came back from Afghanistan. It took months for me to fully understand how different he was; and even still, when he got sick, it was so easy for me to assume he was sliding back into his old ways.”

“That’s what he was trying to make you think, though.”

“But you didn’t fall for it! Not as easily as I did, and even Rhodey.”

“I think one reason for that was, I didn’t know him before, the way y’all did, and that one meeting left me ready to chuck everything I thought I knew about him. I was open in a way you couldn’t be.”

“Maybe so,” she nodded. “But partly, maybe, I was afraid to think about him being hurt that badly.” She bit her lip and toyed with her wine cup. “I think Steve is in that same boat I was, where Bucky’s concerned. That said though, I agreed with him on this. Bucky's more afraid of himself than anybody here is afraid of him. The Hulk booth is too much like a jail cell, even though we tried to make it comfortable and nice, and Tony’s right that he doesn’t need to feel locked up.” 

“Tony’s really all in on making Bucky feel safe and welcomed,” I mused. “I have to admit, I was worried about that. I mean, for him to feel like he was expected to put Bucky up here would’ve…”

“You know as well as I do nobody makes Tony do anything.”

“But you know as well as I do that one person can make Tony do anything. Tony. Well, two, counting you.”

Pepper smiled, then sighed. “He’s had a lot of time to process, and…I know he’s told you some of what happened to him in Afghanistan, but not everything. He and Bucky have more in common than most people might imagine.”

“Given what little Tony’s let slip about what HYDRA did to Bucky, I—don’t think I want to imagine,” I said quietly. Pepper didn’t answer, but her gaze hardened, and I thought if Obadiah Stane and the Ten Rings terrorists he had hired to kidnap and kill Tony were alive, they would wish they were dead by the time she got through with them. I couldn’t do much, but I would be beside her with rage in my chest. “Makes sense, though. You wouldn’t be going out of your way to help Bucky if Tony wasn’t okay with him being here. I hope I can help him out some, too.”

“I’m sure you do,” she replied archly.

“ _Pepper_. Sis. The last thing I’ve got time to do is thirst for a defrosted super-soldier hit-guy, to say nothing of him being Steve’s bestie, or any of the several other complications.” Her small laugh was mischievous, and I decided not to include my suspicion that he and Nat had a history that was more than professional. “How is Tony?” I asked after a moment’s quiet. “He wasn’t in the workshop or his lab, so I hoped he was resting.”

“He was, when I left to come up here. Can’t vouch for his whereabouts now, though.” The indulgent curl of her mouth gave the lie to her mock-careless tone.

“You set him right, though.”

“Oh, I gave him The Talk, complete with stern disappointed voice paired with a few judiciously deployed tears, and all is good now. I started off by telling him I’m getting tired of him having so little faith in me that he thinks I’m leaving him forever every time we have a disagreement or I need a breather.”

“Lord have mercy,” I said fervently. “If you put it that way, I bet he went to the closet looking for his suitcase and started googling nearby hotels on his phone.”

She groaned a little and nodded. “I had to physically stop him and tell him I can deal with what he feels he needs to do. This time apart…I wanted to step away, deliberately, and see how it made me feel, and it has been hell for me, really. I decided that if not dealing means losing him, I won’t accept that. He cares more about others than himself, but I care more about him than anybody else. So I told him that, and that I don’t want him making promises he thinks I want to hear, when he knows he can’t keep them. I also told him I know he values other people’s well-being more than his own, and that being the case, assuming he loves me, I expect him to value mine the most. Which means he needs to marry me so I’m covered legally when he finally does something so stupid he gets himself killed.”

“You… proposed to him,” I said in disbelief. “In a suitably weird way.”

“In essence.” Pepper waved her hand. “It got my point across. And he said yes.”

Whatever variety of tough love Pep had laid on him, it finally seemed to have stuck, because in the days that followed Tony practically floated around the tower. Well, he actually kind of limped, because yes, Helen had patched up the life-threatening injuries, but he was still, as he griped, one big damn bruise. That didn’t slow him down for long, though, before he was back to wrangling international negotiators and trying to think of gentle pranks to play on Bucky when he grew comfortable enough to start venturing around the tower. JARVIS was our secret weapon on that front, to help Bucky feel safe, feel others were safe around him, and still be able to move around the tower as he pleased. Our AI pledged his support and assured our new resident his duty was to make sure everyone living under Sir’s roof was secure. Bucky thought ‘Sir’ was hilarious, so I ended up explaining the story of the real Jarvis, in whose memory Tony had created ours. 

As promised, I met with him regularly and told him all the stories I could about the Avengers’ backgrounds and history, as well as how I had come to be a small part of their story. The rest of the team returned to the compound, but visits to the tower became even more frequent than before. The twins were there nearly every day for at least a little while to hang out with Bucky, and Nat, as I expected, was around corners almost as frequently as when she had lived here. 

Tony was right about Dr. Rausch, too; she was more than willing to make house calls and start working with Bucky to overcome the issues from his decades of captivity. One of several suggestions she gave him, and one I jumped at the chance to help with since I loved them, was puzzles, logic and memory games. Bucky admitted that, while his recall for orders given when he was the Winter Soldier had been damn near flawless, his ability to make new memories was shaky. “I dunno if it’s because they jolted my brain cells so many times, or just that I didn’t have anything that was, y’know, me¸ to remember.” He pointed to a stack of spiral notebooks, their edges worn, that sat on a side table in his otherwise spare and military-neat suite. “Once I got away and started really trying, things started comin’ back and I started writing ’em down.”

“You and Steve are more alike than I thought,” I replied. “He carried a little notebook around with him a lot, probably still does, to write down new things he wants to check out—movies to see, books to read, music to listen to.”

“Yeah, he still does. Preaches to me outta it every day. You’ll help me find stuff I like though, right Christine? I’m kinda, what’d’ya say, a nerd? I like science, and technical stuff. Tony’s old man demonstrated a flyin’ car at his expo, back in the day. Never have forgotten that.”

“Absolutely. Being a nerd myself, that’s right up my alley.” 

Tony, Steve and Nat tag-teamed the authorities. Dr. Rausch was a valuable ally on that front as well. She explained to Phil Coulson, the UN, various international law enforcement agencies, and a very cranky Nick Fury that no, it was not appropriate for Sergeant Barnes to be locked up; no, the Sokovia Accords most certainly could not be applied to him in any form, and if they didn’t trust her professional word she would be happy to give them gruesomely detailed explanations as to why; and no, it was not safe for the whole planet, or even every intelligence agent on it, to know where he was. 

I helped set up video conferencing in a meeting room at the tower, meticulously cleared of identifying markers and shielded by JARVIS, so interviewers chosen by Phil could start taking information from Bucky. He was eager to get everything he could remember off his chest, but it was clearly tiring. I visited with him as often as I could for a while, just to chill, until Nat mentioned it one day while she and I were waiting for Pepper and Wanda to meet us for lunch. “Bucky says you’ve been spending a lot of time helping him.”

The statement carried the calm neutral tone of the Black Widow at her best, but I knew right away what lay behind it. “I’m sorry, Nat. I—I guess I got carried away.” _Let’s not talk about getting carried away by those pretty grey eyes, or his bashful smile, or the way he laughs when he finds something new he likes, or his hands or his thighs or—Knock it off, Chrissy_. “You know I’m kind of a sucker for folks in need.”

Pepper strolled into the sushi bar about then, followed in short order by Wanda, and after hugs, updates and ordering, I went on, “You’re right though, I probably do need to back off. He’s got Steve, and Tony and Pep, and he really likes Dr. Rausch, which surprises me not at all since PTSD is her specialty. I have a shit-ton of work, and I’m taking up time he probably needs for other things, just goofing around with him.”

“I don’t think so!” Pepper objected. “Goofing-off time is important too.”

“Yeah, but I suspect he’d rather be goofing off with his best pal, if I had to make a guess,” I returned. “Tony wants me to help with the public-facing side of the Accords’ retooling, and that on top of my usual daily round is going to keep me hopping. Familiar faces are probably what Bucky needs right now to help him adjust.”

“But he likes your face!” Wanda burst out and then blushed. “I mean, he enjoys your company, he has said so to Pietro and me. You’re right that familiar faces put him at ease, but he needs more than that, I think.”

I opened my mouth, acutely aware of my friends’ eyes on me, especially Nat’s carefully appraising look. “Well, uh, I’m not gonna completely abandon him. I promised to help him catch up with the 21st century, and face it, do any of us want a repeat of Tony trying to convince Steve that Colonel Sanders outranks him?”

That broke the steady gazes into a hail of chuckles, and the conversation moved on. Sometime in the next days, though, I was going to have to take Nat aside and get things clear. She cared for Bruce, but he had bailed on her. I for one was not going to be the friend who got in the way of her moving on and possibly rekindling something with Bucky, if that was what she wanted.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy gets back to work, but finds herself in Bucky's orbit more than she expected. Not that she's unhappy about it.

My moving on, in the form of getting back into my daily work routine (or what passed for same) started up the next day. Or, to be more accurate, I tried to start it up. As Pepper is fond of saying, if you want to make God laugh, share your plans. That old adage became my life in nearly every unbooked moment of the next several weeks.

I don’t mean to sound pouty. It wasn’t as if I got none of the work I was paid for done. Things were, as usual where the Avengers were concerned, interesting, sometimes to the extreme. The morning the Buzzfeed guy, whose name I had learned was Jacob, called me for comment on rumors that Thaddeus Ross was about to submit a highly unexpected resignation letter to President Ellis, I was hard at it from dawn to midnight, literally. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Bucky appeared at my office door that evening with a turkey sandwich in hand, while I had a phone to each ear and four holoscreens going. “Tony said he bet you hadn’t stopped to eat,” he nodded. “He asked Pepper to come check but she had some business thing come up, so she asked me to. I ain’t anybody’s chef, but I can slap together a decent sandwich.”

The sandwich was tasty, I had in fact not slowed down to eat more than a handful of goldfish crackers all day, and having the meal brought by a handsome delivery man gave me impetus to stop and actually eat it, especially considering Bucky stayed to converse. We monitored the news coverage together, long enough to see the rumors were true and Ross was ‘retiring while still in good health, to spend more time with his family’, before he headed upstairs. It was heartening to see him begin to leave his suite, and then venture off Steve’s floor, though he didn’t yet trust himself to leave the building—and really, we hadn’t yet formally announced that he was staying at the Tower, so that was for the best, besides the obvious concerns about his safety.

With Bucky cautiously starting to explore, Steve started cooking up some of the cockamamie bonding exercises he had been notorious for when the original team had been based here, and he worked overtime to make his buddy feel included. Pepper pitched in, and they planned things that let Bucky choose options, but didn’t throw an overwhelming number of choices at him. Wisely, they stuck with calmer pursuits like movies and charades and card games, not that even those were always calm where this bunch was concerned. I was generally invited, and we all got some remarkable lessons in World War Two-era profanity when Bucky and Steve yelled at each other. (Bucky swore Steve cussed in his sleep.)

As I said, I was almost always urged to join in when activities were planned, but oddly, said activities frequently seemed to take unusual turns, or fall apart altogether. There was the night Steve texted me that he and Bucky were calling out for Chinese, Wanda and Pietro were visiting, and they were all going to crash and watch a movie on what we now called the Brooklyn floor. ::maybe one of your pal’s Sherlock Holmes movies:: he suggested. ::Buck likes a good laugh.::

::Sounds like a plan:: I replied. ::just make sure it’s the first one. Remember how that second one ends!::

::Yikes! Yeah you are right. See you in a little while.::

I arrived, we enjoyed our food and friendship, but within a few minutes of the movie’s start, Wanda abruptly jumped up and declared she had homework to do for Strange, and hauled a protesting Pietro off with her to phone for a portal back to the compound. A few minutes after that, Steve smacked his forehead dramatically and excused himself to complete overdue paperwork on the team’s last mission. So it ended up just Bucky and me on Steve’s couch, which was not what I had expected, but was certainly enjoyable! Fortunately, Steve’s work to reacclimate his pal to touch was succeeding admirably, as indicated by Bucky's reaction when I nearly dozed off on his metal shoulder. “You can come ‘round on this other side,” he offered. “That’s not gonna be anywhere close to comfortable, and your hair’d likely get stuck between the plates.” I knew I was bright red when I excused myself and fled back to my floor.

Working with Tony on the Accords, particularly with Ross’ sorry ass out of the way, was an exciting challenge. That was one reason I was a bit disappointed when his focus shifted; instead of us putting our heads together and combining our skills with words to craft exactly what we wanted the regulations to do, Tony started to jet off on a succession of personal appearances and meetings with various luminaries around the world whose input he thought might be helpful. 

Steve went with him on a number of those excursions, and often asked me to check in on Bucky in his absence. The guys were never gone more than a day or two, but it was encouraging to see that Steve felt his buddy had progressed enough to spend some time on his own. I always dropped by the Brooklyn floor, and usually ended up sharing a meal with Bucky. Once I got my courage up to ask him to come down to my floor, and cooked for him. It had been a while since anybody had raved that much over my country fried steak and gravy.

When Tony had to go on the Accords jaunts, he left Pietro in charge of the workshop and labs. The cheeky young Sokovian’s college classes were going well, he spent many days at the tower while Wanda was working at the Sanctum, and he was even getting extra credit for the projects he helped Tony with. We all missed Bruce; I worried about him, and I knew Nat did, though she remained her usual tight-lipped self about it. Pietro had proven to have a real head for the sciences, though, and Tony had come to trust him to ride herd on his inner sanctum during his brief absences. 

I swung by regularly when Tony was gone too, and quickly discovered that as soon as Tony was out of sight, Pietro raced upstairs and hauled Bucky down to check things out. Being a science nerd, Bucky was thrilled, though he admitted to being nervous. It wasn’t that the place triggered any flashbacks to his ordeals with HYDRA and the Soviets; the cheerful chaos of Tony’s work areas was light years away from that. Mostly, he just walked cautiously around the lab with his hands clasped behind him in hopes, he said, that he wouldn’t accidentally bash into something. Pietro and I both reassured him as best we could. Gradually, he began to relax. The bots helped a lot with that; DUM-E rolled excitedly up every time Bucky walked in, poking at his left arm until he rolled his sleeve up and let Tony’s eldest explore it curiously. Eventually, he was even coaxed into helping with an occasional project for Pietro’s classes. _Science Bros 2.0_ , I thought, half amused, half sad and missing Bruce.

Sometimes it ended up being another pairing altogether though; when Pietro had multiple irons in the fire, he often drafted me to hold something while Bucky worked on it or take notes while he measured. Those situations made it easy and natural to slip in casual touches, and Bucky seemed to tolerate them better all the time, even beginning to respond in kind. It was fascinating to watch his metal hand, even covered with a glove as it often was, move as deftly as the flesh one. “How much sensation does it have?” I asked one day, when we were sufficiently comfortable with each other.

“Good bit,” Bucky shrugged. “I mean, I could pick out ripe fruit with it, back when I was livin’ out on my own, so it’s not like it’s real heavy with the grip if I don’t intend for it t’be.” That was interesting information for a number of reasons, including some that if I had my way nobody but me would ever, ever know. We worked side by side in companionable quiet while Pietro happily twisted wires and muttered to himself in Sokovian. ”That got your name on it?” Bucky asked a few minutes later with a nod toward a scrap of paper stuck under the middle finger of an unfolded watch gauntlet lying on the nearest workstation to us.

I squinted, stretched over and picked it up. Sure enough, it had my name written on it in Tony’s neat print. “It does, but I don’t know why,” I frowned.

A sudden gulp came from Pietro, who had done his usual blurry dash across the workshop to my side. “I, uh, should have put that away,” he mumbled. “Tony did not, um…” He gulped again at my and Bucky’s unison stares. “He did not want you to see it.”

“Why not?” Bucky’s tone was mild, but something moved beneath, something dark and fierce.

Pietro’s glance from Bucky to me was pointed. “It’s a surprise,” he finally said. “Tony said he was tired of you having to defend yourself with whatever was handy, so he made that for you.”

“He…oh my GOD…” I don’t know what reaction Pietro expected, but I suspect it was not for me to squee loudly and grab him up. “Oh my God this is awesome. I won’t tell him I know, Pietro, I promise I won’t!” I spun and thrust a finger in Bucky’s direction. “And you won’t either, got it Sergeant?”

“Hell no. You scare me almost as much as Miss Potts—I mean Pepper.” My fingers itched to get hold of it, but I didn’t want to risk damaging it when it might not be finished, and Tony could probably tell if it had been moved, so I had to settle for pointing out the parts I knew and explaining to Bucky how it worked. “I thought you were a gabber, a publicity gal, not a fighter.”

“I am a talker, mostly, but there’ve been a few times I ended up in the middle of a row and had to take care of myself.”

Reminiscing about the scrapes I had found myself in since meeting Tony and Pepper brought a smile to my face, but a scowl to Bucky’s. “I don’t like that,” he growled. “You’re a lady, you didn’t sign up to be a hero and you shouldn’t have to be.”

“Most heroes didn’t. And nowadays a ‘lady’ has to be able to protect herself. Thank heavens, I’ve had the best help imaginable to learn how to do that. Lord knows there have been times I wished I could do more. I don’t want to be shielded, Bucky, not even by my best friends. My last boyfriend and I parted ways partly because he couldn’t keep himself from trying to coddle me. Yes, there are times a body has to be protected from things they can’t handle themselves, but those are few and far between. The world’s a tough place and we all have to be able to take it on.”

Bucky sighed. “I gotcha. It’s not like I never knew dames who would kick your ass if it needed kickin’, like Natalia, and Peggy. It’s just…never mind. Tell me Stevie ain’t been tryin’ to teach you nothin’. Before he got juiced up, he was littler’n you are now. If I had a wooden nickel for every time I had to drag him outta some alley fight where he was gettin’ his scrawny butt handed to him, I could build a log cabin with ‘em.”

“No, he hasn’t! Nat’s taught me the most, and Clint—you only saw him in passing, but I bet she’s told you about him. He’s a nut, but a tremendously skilled one. We’ll get him into town sometime soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody notice what Chrissy's friends are doing here? LOL
> 
> If you’ve seen the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies (spoiler alert if you haven't! stop reading this note!), you may remember that Game of Shadows ends with Holmes falling to his apparent death. Steve and Chrissy agree that might be a bit traumatic for Bucky to see, so they stick with part 1.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Natasha's studio, Chrissy dances with Tony, and with Bucky, and gets some useful information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a soundtrack!  
> Glamorous Life, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpO07s-Aw4I  
> Sweet Freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xetxYwyak (From the movie Running Scared, with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines. HIghly recommended, one of the best buddy comedies ever!)  
> Ain;t Nobody, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ro8-ngA8gs

True to his word, Bucky kept mum about the watch gauntlet, so I could shriek convincingly and throw my arms around Tony’s neck when he produced it a few days later. It folded up into a gorgeous boyfriend-style timepiece in my favorite rose gold, and felt great on my arm; but it was going to take practice to master it. Tony naturally promised all the tutoring I needed, but I was going to have to work that in around everything else that landed on my plate in a typical week, plus all the circumstances that seemed to conspire to throw Bucky and me together. Not that those circumstances bothered me, exactly, just that while a part of me savored every minute I got to spend with the dangerously attractive man, another part fretted about taking his time away from the person he probably really wanted to be with. Natasha’s visits to the tower had even lessened, and I had never gotten to corner her for that little talk assuring her I wasn’t trying to block her path to Bucky. I had sworn all my life never to hit on another woman’s man, and I wasn’t about to start now.

Fretting accomplished exactly nothing, though, so I continued through my days juggling everything expected of me. Breaks were equally vital, like the day Nat was in town and texted that she was up in the dance studio, and did I want to come and work off some stress?

Boy, did I ever. I’d taken Bucky up to the studio a couple of times, just because the sound system was second only to Tony’s workshop and the acoustics were far better. JARVIS had played Boil the Frog, starting with songs Bucky recalled from his youth and segueing to compatible modern tunes. Watching him listen with wonder as a playlist flowed from the Glenn Miller Band to Bruno Mars was heartwarming; he had loved to take gals out dancing, he said, and still had a preference for music with a good beat. (Steve, artistic soul that he was, gravitated toward intricate themes and singer-songwriters. Fox News would have crapped their collective pants if they knew that back in his art student pre-super-soldier days, Steve had hung with union organizers and leftist agitators, and even met Woody Guthrie one time. The only modern music he and Bucky seemed to agree on was Springsteen, who can do it all.) 

I quickly changed clothes and got ready to sweat to some oldies. When I got off the elevator on Nat’s floor, though, and spotted a familiar figure slouched in the hallway outside her quarters, I started to sweat for a whole other reason. “Hey, Bucky. What’s up?”

“Hey, Chris. I was, um, looking for Natalia, but she’s not here. I didn’t think she was going back to the compound until tomorrow.”

“She’s here! She’s down in the studio. C’mon.” I chatted lightly about music and food, and resolutely tried to ignore the strangely reassuring solidity of the metal arm around my waist. It was just the thrill of having our newbie initiate a touch, I told myself.

Inside the studio, somebody was in an 80s mood. Vintage Sheila E bounced off the walls, and Nat stood, her back to the doors (but facing the mirrors—it wasn’t like the Black Widow was even going to leave her back unguarded) shimmying to the music. More surprising yet, Tony was right beside her, laughing while he swung his hips and bumped her, and laughing even harder at the feigned scowl she shot his way. A pleased sigh slipped from my mouth, glad to see him relaxed and happy for a while, at the same moment he spied us in the glass. “Cornbread!” Tony did one of those amazing spin turns of his and met us halfway across the room. “Come dance with me. Unless Olaf’s got you in his icy clutches,” he added with a pointed glance toward Bucky’s arm around me.

“Huh? Oh! Oh no, I just, uh, he was coming in here, and I was coming in here, so, yeah, I mean no,” I stammered while I extricated myself and let Tony lead me off. 

“He looks disappointed,” he said the instant we were far enough away that even super-soldier hearing couldn’t pick it up over the killer drum solo. “Maybe you should let him get you in his clutches. He’s putting himself together, doing a pretty good job of it too. He’s a good guy, considering his brain’s been through the sequel to Rocky Horror more times than I’ve seen Rocky Horror.”

“Tony,” I shook my head, as swept up by fondness as by the dance, “sometimes, even I have a hard time keeping up with you.”

“Good,” he smirked and spun me around. “Got to hold on to a bit of mystery. Makes me more alluring.” I rolled my eyes, hard. “Thanks for the help with Pep, by the way. I, ah…”

“You jumped to the worst possible conclusion, as you still do way too often, and you forgot how much she loves you,” I asserted. For once, he didn’t argue, instead looking down at our feet moving across the floor. “Quit selling my sis short, okay? It’s exhausting having to ride herd on you two.” That made him look up and laugh, and that in turn lifted my heart anew. “Thanks for trying to play matchmaker for me here, but Bucky’s got a lot to deal with still, he doesn’t need to think a girl is chasing him. Besides,” I added, tipping my head toward where Bucky was holding Nat cautiously as she talked him through some contemporary dance steps, “I think he and Nat had a thing back in the day, and I know she cared about Bruce but…she could use some happiness, here and now.”

“They did?” Tony cocked his head with a puzzled frown as the music segued from Glamorous Life to Sweet Freedom. “Huh. Had no idea, but then, it’s Nat…Here, lemme show you how to do that step.”

He stepped back, counted under his breath and danced it off, his hips channeling Patrick Swayze; then his hands curled around my hips and turned me around to walk me through the sequence. Once we stepped through a few times he spun me around and took my hands. We only danced for a few moments, though, before Tony’s eyes flicked past my shoulder. “Mind if I cut in?” Bucky’s voice came from behind me. 

“Which one of us you want?” Tony inquired with hiked eyebrow, before he laughed and let out a whoosh of breath. “Just kidding! I’m pooped anyway. Disgraceful, for geriatrics like you and Cap to run everybody else to collapse…” 

He tromped off, mock-grumbling. Bucky watched him go, his brow wrinkled, before he turned to me. “Did I make him mad? I wasn’t gonna interrupt, y’know, but Nat’s been showin’ me some new moves and she pretty much ordered me to come practice with you. She didn’t ask you first though, did she, I’m sorry—”

“Hush! C’mere, I’ll try not to step on your feet.” I reached out and was silently delighted when after only a flicker of hesitation, his hands closed on mine and we began to move around the studio. His rhythm was excellent, and once he stopped apologizing for everything, the dance flowed. I couldn’t help singing along under my breath, in between steps and turns and not knowing whether or not I should look into his stormy eyes for fear of losing something in there I couldn’t afford to lose. _Shine sweet freedom, shine your light on me… Kind of an appropriate song._

“Nice song. You like it, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s from one of my favorite movies. You’d love it. In fact, the whole team would, and I don’t think it ever got into one of our OG Avengers movie nights.” Then, of course, I had to explain the history of the term OG. As always, Bucky took it in good grace and tried to apologize again for being ignorant. “Please,” I sighed. “You’re as bad as Tony, taking on blame for things that aren’t your fault.”

“He does? That don’t seem like him.”

“He’s very good at hiding what he doesn’t want people to see.” I glanced across the studio. Tony appeared intent on his phone screen at first look, but his eyes kept straying toward us. I grinned when his gaze met mine; his mouth flew open and he raised an awkward hand. Sitting beside him, Nat nudged him hard with one foot, and his arm and head both fell, his shoulders shaking with poorly disguised laughter as she laughed too and waved our way. “That said, he doesn’t do subtle very well.”

Bucky snorted. “He reminds me more of Stevie all the time. He’s a good egg, Tony I mean. Stevie’s a punk.” I snorted and returned my attention to my actions as the music changed again, this time from bouncy pop to sensual funk. _Ain’t nobody, loves me better, makes me happy, makes me feel this way, ain’t nobody loves me better than you…_ My partner drew me a hair closer. I fought the urge to relax into him, and yield to the music’s call. “You’re good at this,” he said.

“I didn’t used to be. Hanging around the Avengers has improved my physical skills a good bit in several realms, actually. You’re good at it too.”

“Aah, I can cut a rug all right. Natalia’s a good teacher.” He cast a warm glance over his shoulder at Nat, who was still watching us, her face curiously unperturbed for a woman whose man was dancing with another woman. Then again, we were friends, and she was the Black Widow; her ability to veil her emotions aside, I was sure she trusted me to behave myself. I suppressed a sigh, and was just about to excuse myself when Bucky went on, “It’s nice, now, that we have time to get to be friends, her and me. Kinda hard to make the acquaintance of somebody when you’re shootin’ at them, they’re shootin’ at you, or you’re both gettin’ shot at.”

“Yeah, she’s a great friend. She’ll have your back in any…” I stopped talking and almost stopped moving, as his words soaked in. “You’re—just now getting to know her? I was under the impression you, ah, knew each other really well.”

“Nah. We crossed paths a few times, here and there, but that’s all—you okay, doll?”

I’m sure I had a look of total befuddlement on my face. “Oh,” was all I could get out, while the voice of Chaka Khan continued to wind around us. _First you put your arms around me, then you put your charms around me, can’t resist the sweet surrender, all our nights are warm and tender, we stare into each other’s eyes, and what we see is no surprise…_

Bucky snapping his fingers in front of my eyes brought me back to myself. “Did I break somethin’, Christine? You look like Tony’s robot kid, when he gets turned around and can’t find his way out of a corner.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” I managed to shake off my shock. “Now you’re comparing me to DUM-E. Much obliged.”

“My pleasure,” he grinned. “Now, we gonna finish this dance or what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boil the Frog is a Spotify app that can make playlists to take you in small steps from any one musical artist to any other one. I maintain JARVIS, being much smarter, could do it much better. static.echonest.com/BoilTheFrog/
> 
> Tony got a tad obscure with that reference to Bucky...the sequel to the Rocky Horror Picture Show is called Shock Treatment. 0_0
> 
> Chrissy's watch gauntlet looks kind of like this.  
> https://www.amazon.com/Caravelle-Bulova-44L106-Classic-Gold-Tone/dp/B008BF8KJO


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky continues to recover and adjust to life in the tower, in secret, with the team and Chrissy's support. It's fine, until it isn't.

Bucky continued to make great strides in reassembling a life of his own. The day he started to work out in the tower gym, word got around somehow (and by _around,_ I mean throughout the building and out to the compound. People began to come out of the woodwork!) At first, he wouldn’t spar with anybody but Steve, for fear of hurting them. Tony got fed up and threatened to fight him in the suit. Bucky was thrilled.

After a few go-rounds, Tony finally got Bucky to come at him straight on, without the suit. It was almost funny watching Bucky try to be so careful. It didn’t help, of course, that Tony lies about his height on a daily basis. Watching them on the mats looked at first a lot like a large dog trying to hold off a furious small cat—until Tony got a few good licks in, and Bucky realized he was not playing around. That bout ended with Bucky praising Tony’s quickness and stamina.

A week or so later, Clint came to town to check on his building and dropped by to visit. Bucky was practicing some knife work in the gym, and I was observing with great appreciation. He did insane moves, tossing the knife and catching it in the other hand while he spun and thrust and parried. It didn’t hurt, of course, that he looked splendid doing it. (I can neither confirm nor deny that I paid close attention to every conversation I had with Steve, and made note of any mention, however casual, of Bucky’s training schedule.) From the grins he shot my way when he saw me watching, my attention didn’t seem to bother him. 

Subtle was my thing, sometimes, and I had put my best effort into sounding Nat out about her side of any situation with Bucky, until she gave me a thoroughly unamused look and told me to go after the man if I wanted him. Making my interest known was still out of the question for me though, because he did have more than enough to deal with, between getting his head on straight and getting his legal status settled (Tony, Pepper, and the legion of SI attorneys were putting in overtime on that score).

Clint joined me, and when Bucky paused to catch his breath and a drink of water, asked if Bucky knew anything about long blades. Bucky allowed as how he had learned a little from a Red Army officer who was apparently a Soviet equivalent of the Civil War reenactors back home. Clint grinned, and told Bucky, “Hope you ate your Wheaties this morning, Barnes. I got a little something for you,” before he dashed out.

Bucky and I exchanged baffled looks, matched by the ones Tony and Steve wore when they walked into the gym a moment later. When we quickly explained, they looked at each other and howled. “Siddown, shellhead, this is gonna be a show!” Steve yelped, slapped Tony across the chest and dropped to a seat on the nearest corner of the mat. 

Moments later Clint reappeared in the doorway—with a pair of samurai swords and a couple of bamboo practice blunts. Bucky’s eyes lit up. They proceeded to whale away with the blunts, yelling and laughing like kids beating each other with pool noodles while we hooted and cheered. After a little of that, they switched to the real steel, and the mood changed. Clint snapped into a state of focus as sharp as he ever had carried into battle as an Avenger, and Bucky…when he glanced my way, for the first time, I saw the Winter Soldier of Steve’s sketches, his eyes chilly and measuring.

The two men began a dance at once thrilling and deadly, shifting and circling each other. Clinks and clangs and huffs of breath were the only sounds heard. A bomb could have gone off in that gym and I wasn’t convinced either of them would have blinked. Steve took an occasional sharp breath when Bucky slashed or thrust, feinted and parried. I was hard pressed to tell whether Tony was breathing at all; his mouth, when I tore my eyes away long enough to glance his way, was hanging slightly agape in incredulity. I must have looked even more mind-blown, because Bucky glanced at me and started to laugh. “Ya look like you’ve never seen two clowns chase each other with big Japanese cookin’ knives before, Christine.”

“Oh, I’ve seen it. One of my cousins was all into cosplay and LARPing. I always wanted to try it but, you know, girl.”

Bucky frowned. “Larping must be some Southern fighting style. I don’t know that one.”

Clint cackled, and then to my amazement gave him a quick summation of what role-playing was about. “You want to try?” he asked me. “Barnes, show her the basic hold with your blunt and walk her through a couple of stances, and I’ll spar.”

Bucky handed me the bamboo practice sword and stepped behind me. One warm muscular arm and one cool metal one slipped around my body; two strong hands closed over mine where I clutched the grip of the blunt uncertainly. “Okay. Best way to hold a sword is with your right hand at the top of the grip, see, like this, right under the crossguard, and the other hand at the bottom of the grip, closer to the pommel—that’s the butt end, here. That lets you have a wider range of arm movements, plus a firmer hold. Makes it harder for the other fighter to knock it out of your hand. Keep your elbows bent and close in to your body. hold the sword in the ready position, that’s pointing up in front of you, so you can go any direction you need to...Now, open your body up at a 45 degree angle. Most folks put their left foot in front, I’ve seen it done reverse but let’s start with that. Gives you a solid base of support, less chance he can knock you over…no, face your hips toward Barton, not out to the side…”

Clint hefted his bamboo, mirrored my stance, and started to move. Bucky moved me through how to shift my weight, step to evade attack, and block. After a few minutes, he backed away and talked me through the same moves. A while later, I knew the eight angles of attack and how to parry a stroke and use the check to launch a strike of my own. “You overwhelmed?” Clint teased when we stopped for a break (Bucky, of course, hadn’t even broken a sweat).

“Not even close. Bucky, you are a good teacher. You explain why I’m doing what I’m doing, but you don’t belabor the point.” He looked unsure, but my grin must have reassured him. On the sidelines, Tony and Steve were talking quietly with their heads close together. They looked like they were plotting, which is always terrifying, but I chose to ignore them. It was likely none of my business. “I’d love to try it again sometime, even though I don’t guess sword-fighting proficiencies are all that practical.”

“You’d be surprised,” Clint returned as he put his hands on my sides, made me stand up straight and hold the blunt in ready position while he fussed and hummed and did everything but whip out a measuring tape. “This one’s too long for you, obviously since it suited the bumble over there. Maybe a 39 inch…I can get you one before I see you again.”

“I’ve used sword basics with everything from a tree branch to a chef’s knife,” Bucky put in as he inspected the katana he had been wielding. “If you don’t have a real weapon handy, you use whatever you do have.”

“Absolutely,” Clint agreed. “This one,” he poked me, “is good at that. Nat saw her take a guy with a gun down using a corn dog skewer one time.”

“And I still haven’t lived it down,” I sighed, but in good humor. Bucky’s eyes widened, so I didn’t mind much, if it impressed him. 

“I definitely want you to be able to protect yourself, whatever situation comes up.” Bucky still sounded a bit hesitant. “Situations around the Avengers can get weird, I’m sure.”

“They can,” I concurred. “I can’t think of anybody I’d rather learn more skills from than the Winter Soldier, though, the best fighter in the world.”

Bucky shook his head, long dark hair flying. “No. That’s not me. I mean, it is, but it isn’t. Dr. Rausch keeps talking to me about accepting what I was—made to do, but not blaming myself for it. Truth is, I never really liked to fight. I never had that fire. Steve, even when he was a little shrimp, or especially then, he just burned to take somebody on. I…I hate that for all those years. all I did was hurt and kill and destroy. I wanna do something good.”

“Well, you’ve got these skills,” Clint pointed out. “You can use them to help other people stay safe. You’re starting already by showing Chris the ropes here.”

“I’ve had to defend myself with no prep at all,” I told Bucky, “and with some prep, and believe you me, I much prefer the second option.”

Bucky chuckled. “I don’t aim to be that fella who gets in your way! C’mon, if you caught your breath, let’s try one more go-around.” I took up the ready position without prompting, though I could not deny to myself how good it felt when his strong, sound torso pressed against my back. With a small sigh, I shifted backward against him, and his arms wrapped around me again. “You sure you’re good? That sigh felt kinda done in. tired? Frustrated?”

_Frustrated, but not the way you’re thinking,_ I thought and tried not to let my laugh sound sulky. “I’m good. Let’s kick his ass.”

He leaned in, but just as I was about to go after Clint, Bucky’s hair fell in my face. I spat out a handful and blech’ed. “Do-over!” I hollered. “Not my fault!”

“Put it in a ponytail, Rapunzel!” Tony yelled.

Bucky gave him a genial middle finger. “Sorry,” he said to me. “Steve keeps tellin’ me to get it cut, but I can’t ‘xactly go to the barber shop. I could whack it off myself, or he could, but…I hadn’t really decided. Kinda used to it like this.”

I wondered if that was another sign of Steve’s difficulty in accepting Bucky as he was now, and wishing they could go back to the way they had been long ago. “You do what you want to with it, hon. Heck, put it in a dang ponytail. Before you say that’s not a guy thing, think about George Washington!” 

He laughed out loud and we resumed stalking Clint. “You could get good at this,” he said in my ear. “Doesn’t take strength or speed to be good with a sword. Those are nice, but ain’t essential. To be good at it, you just have to be—good at it. Learn the skills and use them.”

True to his word, Clint did bring a shorter practice blade for me the next time he came to New York. Once I got accustomed to it and had some more sessions under my belt, Bucky cut me loose and took up his own blunt to take me on. I hated that he had to hold himself back so much, but he kept reminding me that even though he was stronger and faster, I could still score on him if I knew my stuff. “’Sides, you’re not that slow! Honest to Pete, you got what it takes.”

The regular spars became a wonderful break from my crazy work life. Bucky confessed they were good for him too. “When I ain’t rackin’ my brain for more intel to give the official folks, I’m tryin’ to catch up, readin’ the stuff you pointed me to, not listenin’ to Steve ‘cause that punk keeps tryin’ to steer me toward freaky shit just to laugh at my face. Tony says I’m welcome in his workshop anytime, an’ sometimes that’s good but sometimes…it ain’t. Not him, he’s aces, but I can only sit still for so long! It’s makin’ me sorta crazy.”

That gave me an idea, and I called Pepper in for help. In no time, she had ordered Bucky up a nice official SI badge and put him to work. That gave us an excuse to shop for him—some nicer shirts and slacks for Pep’s new ‘assistant’, and some glasses that, with the ponytail we finally persuaded him to try out, made him look all studious and, honestly, even more attractive. It also gave Pepper an excuse to hassle me (“I do not have a crush on him, Pep!”), and meant he had to be cleared through Happy, who gave him major side-eye at first, but took to him when he saw how Bucky was unfailingly respectful of people around him, and especially of Pepper.

Bucky as an SI employee was a great cover, I thought, while Pepper put the legal department’s best minds to work on building his defense. Tony was pulling together all the info from the SHIELD dump that was relevant to the Winter Soldier program and combined it with the parts of the secret files he felt safe releasing. He and I spent a good chunk of time getting our mutual ducks lined up and ready to waddle out, while Bucky helped unload office supplies, got Pepper coffee from the shop in the lobby, and so forth. It was fine, until it wasn’t.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world learns Bucky's location, and Pepper joins Chrissy for a press conference to address the issue. Bucky asks Chrissy to come with him for moral support while Tony checks his arm. Chrissy finally puts a name to her feelings for Tony.

One rainy Monday, as I was weighing the merits of going out for lunch versus making quesadillas with the leftover baked chicken in my fridge, my phone rang. “Jacob!” I greeted the reporter on the other end. “What’s Buzzfeed’s finest chasing down today?”

“A very interesting tip we got this morning from a courier making a delivery to Avengers Tower. She reported seeing a man carrying an order from the bistro on the ground floor swipe a Stark Industries ID and go into the private area where the CEO team’s offices are. She snapped a photo and texted it to our hotline, and—Miss Everhart, the fella looks a hell of a lot like James Barnes, the Winter Soldier.”

“And,” I sighed, “you want a scoop.”

“Sure! But I’m also wanting to be sure this guy hasn’t slipped in under your radar. There are still a few people who don’t respect Miss Potts and wouldn’t care if something happened to her, but I’m not one of ‘em. I’ve done some research, and from the stuff I’ve seen, the Winter Soldier could wreak havoc before anybody knew it. New York could be at serious risk again.”

Huh. “Jacob, I—” I paused to formulate a considerate denial, then made an executive decision not to. “To be honest, I’m moved that you are concerned. I’ll offer you this. Sergeant Barnes is here, under the aegis of the Avengers Initiative. He is not a danger to himself or anybody else. However, we need to keep that under the radar until we are ready to make the reveal and explain his situation to the public. We want to be thorough and clear and not leave out any info people would need or want to know. So, here’s the deal. When I schedule the reveal presser, I won’t state flat out that’s what it is. It will happen in the next few days, though. If you can sit on this until then, tell your informant you’re running down leads, then once we announce the briefing, you can deliver your scoop. I of all people know how important a scoop can be to your future! Sound fair?”

Jacob agreed, which meant I had to deliver this unwelcome news to various quarters. Bucky took it hard, mostly because he blamed himself for not holing up until we were ready for the world to know his whereabouts. Pepper’s groan could have been heard in New Jersey. “If I were granted one wish, it would be for you and Tony to both forget the meaning of the word ‘guilt’,” she told him. “We’ll be fine. Chrissy and I will handle the media, and Tony and Steve will handle the authorities.”

As it happened, Tony was a step ahead. “I finally told Agent yesterday we had Olaf here,” he gloated. “Coulson assumed he was in Wakanda waiting to testify in Zemo’s trial. Wasn’t thrilled but wasn’t much he could do. I think he’s jealous we have more assassins in the Tower than SHIELD does, now.”

“And the best ones,” Bucky put in. Once Pepper had figuratively beaten the guilt trip out of him, he seemed almost eager to rip the band-aid off and let the truth be known. 

“That too,” Tony conceded. “Oh, and Cap, Hill sends her regards. Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

“Nothing I’d like to share with _you_ , shellhead,” Steve retorted. Tony chortled and launched an attack, but Steve steadfastly refused to spill any details about anything he and Nick Fury’s second might or might not have done.

Bucky was still laughing about that three days later, but the laughter stilled as the hour for the big press conference approached. He was not going to appear before the assembled media, though that didn’t stop him from pacing like an expectant father in the hallway behind the press room. Pepper was coming with me, and we both did our best to reassure him before we linked hands and strode out into the wash of flashbulbs.

“This is not the way the Avengers wanted Sergeant Barnes’ homecoming to be made known, but sometimes we can’t control everything,” I said to the reporters. “To anticipate some of the questions that, from our monitoring of social media, people already have: Sergeant Barnes is not a threat to the public. That’s why he’s staying here, in the place with the best conceivable security on the planet, to protect others and protect him from persons who might seek to do him harm. He is not going to be taking any questions today; the medical team working with him feels that would be counterproductive. He’s working with professionals to get the help he needs so he can reclaim his life.”

An explosion of voices hurled questions like shrapnel at us, and I parried, using my words like Steve’s shield. “No, we do not believe he will be in any trouble with the law. He is currently working with law enforcement authorities and providing all the information he can regarding illegal activities and operations he was aware of. We have more than enough evidence to prove to the satisfaction of any court that Sergeant Barnes was used as an object, a weapon, by his captors.”

“That’s a convenient excuse,” yelled a young man in a cheap suit, brandishing a phone and probably live streaming the event.

“Excuse?” I snapped, looking directly at his lens. “No, sir, I think you are confusing reasons with excuses. Sergeant Barnes was stripped of his free agency; tortured, brainwashed, manipulated, _broken_. He is a victim, the longest suffering American prisoner of war, and after he escaped his torturers, he risked his freedom, while falsely accused of mass murder, to help track down the real culprit. The Avengers want all of y’all, and everybody out there, to know that they will not tolerate him being treated as anything less than the hero he is.

“A hearing will be held in the near future to settle Sergeant Barnes’ status, and the corroborative evidence in the Winter Soldier case will be made available at that time. Some of it is already in the public domain, if one knows where to look, and if one has a strong enough constitution to bear it.” That hint should keep investigative journalists busy for a while; somebody would figure out eventually to look in the SHIELDRA file dump. I was petty enough to hope what they found there made a few of them puke up their lunches.

I took a deep breath and wished for a lacy kerchief to dab genteelly at my brow. Well, no, I didn’t. I really wished for better air conditioning and a double bourbon lemonade over ice. The noise died down then; I think maybe my vehemence startled even the loudest and most argumentative voices. Even Pepper gave me a quizzical look before, unafraid as ever, she stepped into the breach. “Stark Industries is aware of the photographs that are circulating of the Winter Soldier in our building. Yes, we put Sergeant Barnes to work. He was getting a little stir-crazy.” She smiled, and a few chuckles came from the assembly in return. “Bucky was a friend of Tony’s father, and as Christine said, a genuine hero. We are going to step up and give him all the help and support we can in rebuilding an independent and free life. I should also remind the ladies and gentlemen of the press that Avengers Tower is private property, and Mr. Hogan and SI security will not stand for anyone being harassed on our premises.” _Good add, Pep_ , I thought approvingly.

A few questions were launched. Pepper got a tad testy with a woman from the Post whose concept of mental health treatment seemed to have been lost somewhere in the 1960s, and I explained yet again that I had spoken with King T’Challa, he was fully supportive of Bucky’s recovery and work toward freedom, and we didn’t have a thing to do with the laws of Wakandan succession. Finally, we got all the pressing issues ironed out, and, eyes glued to their phone screens, reporters began to shuffle out to file their writeups. We slid out the side door and thought to head down the hall to find Bucky where we had left him, but we nearly tripped over him right at the exit, with Steve bracing him. “Miss Pot—I mean Pepper,” Bucky sputtered, “ain’t Tony gonna be upset with you talkin’ about his folks when I…”

“No, he is not,” Pepper assured him. “It was his idea that we use that as part of your coverage, actually.”

“Thank you,” he breathed and turned to me while Steve talked to Pepper. “You sure went hard at ‘em, Christine. Tellin’ ‘em none of what I did was my fault, that’s…I dunno how to feel about it.”

“You better feel just fine about it, mister,” I told him sternly. “If I could get that pack of baying wolves to accept it, you sure enough better.”

He looked down at his hands, glanced over his shoulder at Steve and Pepper walking away talking about some art piece down in the lobby, and then back up at me with a new sparkle in his eyes and a winning half-smile. “I dunno if you noticed it, but you’re gettin’ kinda Southern. Did it out there, too.”

“Oh no. I’m so sorry, Bucky. My accent gets away from me sometimes when I’m—I mean, I hope that doesn’t interfere with what I was trying to—”

“It ain’t going to.” His tone was firm. “Just made ya sound like you was mad as a hornet.”

“I was,” I admitted. “Could chew an iron bar and spit tacks, right about now. Or have a few drinks, whichever offered itself first.”

“Ah, well, uh,” he began, and lifted his arms. For a moment I thought he might hug me, until he winced and grabbed at his left shoulder. “This damn arm,” he grumbled. “Tony keeps wantin’ me to come down to his workshop an’ let him work it over, but…the place don’t scare me, you know it, and he don’t either, it’s just—havin’ somebody mess with it, I’m not so sure how I’m gonna handle it. I don’t wanna flip my wig on him, interpret something as a threat knowin’ it ain’t.”

“Want some company?” I offered. “Moral support? Protection from my psycho adopted brother? Let me get out of my armor here and ditch these high heels, and I’ll be happy to go harass him with you. JARVIS? Is Tony down in the dungeon?”

Upon confirmation, I hurried upstairs, changed clothes and raced back down where Bucky was waiting to ride down to the tower basement. Tony was talking, but turned quickly as I keyed in the access code and we walked in, and swiped a big holoscreen display away. “Um, gotta go doc, my space is being invaded. Later! Olaf, you finally bringing that thing in for a hundred thousand mile checkup?” he greeted Bucky. “Great, we’ll see if we can get it running a little better than the average shitty Russian tech. Swearing you to secrecy on that last comment, Nat might take it badly and I want to live long enough to pull off the plans I’ve got in mind for you,” he added.

“Aw, you don’t hafta go to all that trouble,” Bucky protested, but made the effort to grin when he said it. “If I can just get it functionin’ again, and maybe not hurtin’ as much of the time—”

“Hurting?” Tony’s tone sharpened. “Barnes, you didn’t say you were having pain. Shit. Sit down here. Dammit, I wish Banner was here!” He glanced over at me. “You need something, cornbread?”

“Nope. Although I do need for you to look at my watch sometime when you get a sec. It keeps stopping. I’ve never been one of those people that couldn’t wear a watch, so I’m stumped.”

“Christine said she’d come keep her adopted brother the mad scientist from experimentin’ on me,” Bucky said with a mock-challenging glare. The slight anxiety I felt for him eased when he was able to not only sit still, but make light of the whole thing. On the other hand, Tony froze, his hands stilling where he was rummaging through a heap of precision tools on his workbench for a moment. I gulped to myself, and hoped the emotions Tony was so sure he had worked through wouldn’t rise to complicate matters. After another beat and another odd look my way, though, Tony resumed his usual line of jabber, meant, I knew, to put Bucky completely at ease. I rolled a stool up and sat in front of Bucky, teasing with Tony and doing my best to serve as an acceptable distraction.

Obviously, Tony’s first goal was to relieve Bucky’s pain, which meant he had to find what was causing it. That said, I was still startled when Tony poked something and Bucky’s flesh hand shot out and fastened onto mine. Being startled did not prevent me from squeezing back, or adding my other hand to hold on, even when Bucky tried to pull away in the next breath. “Chris, I’ll crush your lil fingers up!”

“Doubtful,” I shot back and refused to relinquish my grasp; he was going to have to fight me to get his slightly shaky hand back.

“Surrender, Buck,” Tony taunted. “You may be juiced, but whatever house brand super-soldier serum you got, it didn’t jack your stubbornness up to beat hers. Trust me on this one.”

Bucky snorted. “I’m gettin’ to know that more all the time,” he conceded. When his eyes met mine, though, I did look away and wished I wasn’t blushing as much as I knew I was. He had enough to do; I had to control my daffy feelings.

Once Tony was able to map the major wires that hooked the prosthetic arm into Bucky’s nervous system, he quickly found some defects that were causing shorts, in effect, and consequent pain. With those corrected, overhauling the joints and plates, cleaning them so they moved smoother, was the work of a few minutes for hands guided by a brilliant mind. “You are somethin’ else, Tony,” Bucky marveled as he swung his arm through the air and wiggled his fingers, the workshop lights glinting off the metal.

“We know he's something else,” I returned. “We’re just not quite sure what, yet. Thor said once he'd never found anything in the universe that couldn't be explained, except Tony.”

“DUM-E, feel free to chase her out of here with the fire extinguisher,” Tony ordered. The bot beeped in clear defiance, and instead joined in the impromptu exercise session before Bucky headed for the door. “No, on second thought, wait a sec, Chrissy. Barnes, come by in a couple of days? I’ve got an idea to rewire some of those circuits to get maximum momentum and utilize the servos more effectively.”

“Will do.” Bucky saluted and left. I watched him go, then turned to Tony, who was already bent over some small project on the workbench.

“Hey, Tony,” I asked, “I had a thought, and I don’t think it’d work, but I thought I’d run it by you.” 

“Hmm?” He waved a hand, granting permission to proceed.

“Extremis. Could it regrow Bucky’s arm? You and Bruce were able to kill it—well, render it inert—in Pepper and me, so could you do that for him too, after the regeneration?”

“There’s no guarantee he’d survive the infection process,” Tony pointed out, not looking up from the gadget he was fiddling with. “And even if there were, who knows how the virus would interact with the bargain basement serum he was injected with. Might end up with an octopus tentacle instead of a human arm. Okay, probably not, and even if so that could have all kinds of uses, but still. I don’t think it’s worth the risk, but I can offer it to him sometime.”

“Yeah, okay,” I sighed. “You’re right. I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask though.”

“Anything to help your pet snowman?”

Tony’s tone was playful, but I didn’t rise to the bait. “Tony, I can’t—Bucky’s got so much to work through. Steve says he still doesn’t sleep through most nights. Yeah, I like him, and I want to help him, but he doesn’t need to feel any additional pressure from somebody being romantically interested in him, when he’s clearly still sorting out how to process his own feelings and how to—to be a person again…”

When Tony spoke again, his voice was rich with sarcasm. “This from the person who’s preached to me for years about the arrogance of assuming I know what somebody else needs more than they do?” I started to argue, then stopped myself, because he was right. As it was, I had already embarrassed myself by jumping to a conclusion about Bucky and Nat that was about as far from the truth as possible. “I’m not saying throw yourself at him in a teddy. Although, a, I’m the last person in all nine realms to be giving relationship advice, and b, if you threw yourself in a teddy at anybody and didn’t get a reaction, I’d suggest checking their back for a zipper. Just, you’ve always told me, don’t make other people’s choices for them. So, don’t make Barnes’ for him. That’s all I’m saying.”

I didn’t quite know what to say, beyond some variation on _you are correct and I am a hypocrite_. So I said, “You are correct, and I am a hypocrite.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that! He likes you, though. Even emotionally constipated me can tell that. You don’t have to pretend you’re hanging around him for another reason, or coming down here with him to, what did he say you told him, protect him from your crazy adopted brother?”

“Was not pretending. He really was nervous. Not about anything you might do, more about how he might react.” 

He nodded. I wasn’t going to add that I knew, and hurt knowing, that Tony was well aware of what trauma did to people. “You’ve never said that about me before,” he added in a casual tone, still focused on his tools.

“Said what, exactly? I say a lot of things about you, hot rod.”

“The brother thing.”

“Um, well, yeah. It’s just, I feel so much more for you than just friends, but not—You know I’ve never felt romantic toward you, we've talked about that. I still have mad self-preservation instincts and I still don’t want Pepper to ventilate my skull with her Louboutins, and it—I didn’t consciously decide to say that, it just came out, but I’ve thought about it. I’ve never really been able to put a—a label, a tag, on how I feel about you.” I thought back, about Wanda saying Tony and I reminded her of her and Pietro, Steve saying we reminded him of him and Bucky. “I never had a brother, but if I had, I’d want him to be you. I mean, if that offends you or upsets you, tell me and I won’t say it agai—”

My halting attempts to explain and semi-apologize were cut short when Tony abruptly put down his work, straightened, turned on his heel, and pulled me into his arms. A flash of memory came to me, the night in my apartment in California when he had let me hug him for the first time, how careful I had been not to hold on too tightly because of the arc reactor; and the same again, after his surgery to remove it. This was not that. This embrace held nothing back. He still guarded his heart, metaphorically speaking; the times his eyes showed his feelings and his smile showed his sincerity were still too few, in my opinion, but thankfully more than they were when we had first met, and I counted myself honored and blessed to be one of those to whom he let his true self be seen. “I always wished for somebody else in my life," he said softly, "somebody to play with and talk to…mom wasn’t going to have more kids, the kids at school didn’t like me for multiple reasons to begin with and I made sure they had ample additional ones. I got to MIT and got Rhodey so I finally got a brother, but…I think I always wanted a sister, and if I’d gotten one, I would’ve wanted her to be you.”

Tension escaped me, and left only relief and love. I hugged him back just as tightly, and we stood in quiet until the workshop doors whooshed open again. Tony lifted his head. “Pep!” he said brightly. “We’ve been adopted.”

I turned and grinned. Pepper looked mildly baffled. “You didn’t know?” she asked him. “Chrissy and I have only been calling each other sis for, what, half a dozen years?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of y'all who have been reading from the beginning know that I periodically point out a scene that's been in my head for a while and that I'm excited to finally share. The conversation Chrissy and Tony have at the end of this chapter is one of those. :)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's case is resolved, and a conspiracy is uncovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note—in this chapter, Bucky uses a couple of terms that are not considered appropriate now, but were in the 1940s. He does not use either one as an insult; they were just the commonly used terms for certain groups of people in his day. Just thought I should fyi you. :)

I didn’t fling myself head first into booty-call territory, even though Tony was firmly convinced Bucky was as interested in me as I was in him. In order to represent the Avengers, and now by extension Bucky, before the world, I had to maintain, yes, that awful word, ‘objectivity’. Getting too emotionally attached while I tried to explain and justify the nightmare of the Winter Soldier was a recipe for disaster.

That didn’t mean I went out of my way to avoid him, though, far from it. I gave myself permission to drop in on him, to bring him baked goods when JARVIS discreetly conveyed he was having a hard day, and to be his designated backup for his visits to Tony’s workshop. Hours of monkeying around were required for Tony to create a fully accurate holomap of Bucky’s arm, and then disassemble it in virtual form, find all the bad spots, and figure out how to fix them. He refused to let Bucky just sit around while he did that, either. “I know what you and Speedy have been up to behind my back,” Tony informed him with a grin. “I can always use an extra hand in the shop nowadays. C’mon, science nerd, let’s thaw those brain cells and give 'em some exercise. Train them to recognize reality, huh?”

“Yeah…yeah, that would be good,” Bucky agreed. “Not much I can do in the way of thankin’ you for all you’re doin’, and—I gotta admit, I don’t really know why you’re doin’ it, considering, y’know…”

“Olaf,” Tony said, with patience in his tone like I had rarely heard, “I’m a little fuzzy about Siberia, but I know this came up in our conversation. When somebody is killed by a weapon it’s not the weapon’s fault. It wasn’t the gun’s choice, or the knife’s. When somebody…when my mom and dad…died from the weapon HYDRA used, it was HYDRA’s responsibility, not the weapon they used. Only difference was, that weapon was you.”

Bucky looked down, and away from Tony, and at me. I didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts, so I just tried to convey my support through a steady gaze. “The stuff I did, they had me to do, it’s like, when you wake up from a nightmare, that moment when you go, Oh thank God it wasn’t real? It’s like that, except after the moment when I don’t think it was real, there’s the next moment when I realize it WAS real.”

Tony was shaken; it showed in his face, and knowing how he had fought his own nightmares, I understood why. Cautiously, he put a hand on Bucky’s flesh shoulder. “I’m gonna do all I can to help you out, Barnes, okay? Birds of a feather, and all that. I promise.”

“You already are, pal! You keep workin’ on my arm, you keep tryin’ to be my friend even when I’m not so good at that.”

“Ever since I found out what HYDRA did to my parents,” Tony said quietly, “I’ve been hell bent on making them pay. Now that they’re mostly gone, besides you just being a good person to have as a friend, helping you is like the biggest fuck-off to them I can imagine.”

Bucky laughed. “I like how you think, shellhead. Which reminds me, you gotta show me that iron suit of yours! Stevie got JARVIS to run me some films, well, videos, isn’t it? Anyway, it looks like a real humdinger, better than that flyin’ car your old man…” 

He halted and looked dismayed, but Tony didn’t bat an eye. “Yeah, Howard never did get that thing off the ground, pun intended, for long. There was one prototype that worked, allegedly, but who knows where that is. When I cleaned out my parents’ old house, I found a metric ton of his old papers—still haven’t gone through them, I may put you to work on that if you don’t watch your back.”

“If I can get done with the testifyin’, I might just take you up on it.” 

The testifying did seem to go on for months. Tony pressed the advantages the Avengers had gained on the Accords debate in the public eye, and I turned that positive energy as a light to shine on the man they had saved—or rather, who had saved himself. T’Challa stepped up to confirm Bucky’s bravery and pledged Wakanda’s help publicly, not long after an explosive speech before the newly reconvened UN in which the young king revealed that his nation, far from being as backward as the rest of the world had thought, had been secretly cultivating some incredibly advanced technology. Tony was drooling, and I wished with everything in me that I could see it someday.

Every few days, it seemed, there was another hearing before another authority to take information about Bucky’s situation. Just as he had in support of Wanda and Pietro, Tony sent his best legal eagles in, and they held nothing back. The videos Tony had found among the HYDRA files dumped were invaluable in proving Bucky was tortured and could not have been in his right mind during his time in their hands. Steve marched into a federal courtroom to tell his part of the saga. Tony set up video conferencing with magistrates at The Hague, and gave a remarkably (for him) terse and straightforward statement about Bucky’s help in tracking Zemo, and his heroism that had saved not only Tony and Steve’s lives, but countless others if the rogue Winter Soldiers had escaped. 

My own work kept me from attending the in-person legal proceedings, but I stayed abreast and answered the torrent of questions that poured in from the press. On the day Bucky was scheduled to testify remotely before the World Court, I begged Leticia to take messages for me, slipped down to the main conference room, and settled myself out of the line of the court’s sight, but within Bucky’s. If I was up till midnight catching up my work, the surprised smile and the way his eyes lit like sun through clouds were more than worth it.

The setup was linked to the compound, and Nat and Sam both gave accounts of their investigation in Vienna and the false evidence they had uncovered implicating Zemo in framing his prey. Then, it was Bucky’s turn. He testified, quietly, to what he remembered, and made apologies for the things he could not. He talked about going to the Smithsonian, over and over, only able to tolerate the dissonance for a few minutes at a time at first. “I knew—somethin’. Wasn’t sure what, but that it had some connection to those folks whose faces I saw there. Made my head hurt, pretty bad, but it was that, or go back to bein’ a prisoner inside my own head, and I’d rather have taken a dip in the river and not come back up than to do that.”

The magistrates listened gravely, then called a break to confer. I gave Bucky a thumbs up and rolled my stool over beside him. “You’re sounding good,” I told him. “When this is all over, if you feel up for it, I think down the road a tad, an interview on TV might be a good idea. There’s a reporter, Marcus Tate, who did a televised group piece with all the Avengers; he’s smart and kind, and I think he would be understanding and work with us so you could feel comfortable and explain yourself to the public. From what I’m seeing on social media, people are eager to hear straight from you who you are.”

“Social media,” Bucky chuckled. “Stevie showed me some’a that stuff. Folks’ll say most anything when they don’t have to put their names to it, won’t they?’ I joined in the laugh and agreed. “I think I saw that TV thing,” he added out of the blue, his eyes widening at the realization. “I did. The reporter was a Negro fella—well, you don’t call folks that anymore, but you know what I mean—sharp dressed, well spoken. I saw Steve and remembered him, and Natalia looked familiar too. Tony—there was somethin’ about him, I couldn’t place. Didn’t know nothin’ about the others, course.” I nodded. “I remember seein’ you too.”

“Really? I tried to stay off camera, but—yeah, when Tony got anxious, I guess I threw myself in front of the oncoming train,” I jibed at myself. After a moment, I could not resist adding, “Do you remember what you thought of me?”

His eyes like a soft sky held mine, with a tiny crease between, as though trying to recall. I was about to take it back and assure him it didn’t matter (a strange female wasn’t going to be nearly as memorable as his lifelong friend or a recent frenemy!) when he grinned. _“Kak nasedka nad yaytsom,_ ” he said, and from the direction of the video wall an open laugh from Nat answered. 

That was, after the years we had known each other, still such an uncommon occurrence that I spun the stool on which I sat to stare at her. “He called you a mother hen,” she supplied, still smiling unapologetically.

I spun back open-mouthed, to find Bucky clearly trying not to laugh himself, and punched his shoulder, then hissed because in my pique I had actually forgotten it was metal. “See?” he ribbed while I shook my hand and fought not to yelp. “That’s what ya get for abusin’ a crippled old man.”

“Crippled is another word we don’t say anymore,” I pointed out.

Bucky watched as I opened and closed my fingers to make sure I hadn’t broken anything. “Want I should kiss it an’ make it better?”

_No, I most certainly do not want—_ My mental string of fuming jerked to an abrupt halt, as abrupt as my head jerking up to look at him. If it hadn’t been so shocking, it would have been funny to see how he looked startled at the words that had come out of his own mouth. I stared, he stared, and neither of us moved for what felt like at least half an hour. The paralysis that gripped me was broken when from the screen behind me, Sam muttered, “You all should’ve locked ‘em in a room alone together weeks ago. Less pining.”

Bucky’s look of shock morphed into frank horror. I whirled again and was about to verbally flay a couple of Avengers, but they were narrowly saved when the feed from the court flickered back to life. The image from the compound shrank to one corner of the screen and I shot off toward my corner. “Focus,” I hissed at Bucky—his freedom was far more important than my mortification or my inappropriately meddling friends. In response, a mask of calm swept over his face, his eyes going cool and concentrating on the task at hand. I could imagine him as a sniper lying patiently in wait. 

As for myself, it was not nearly as easy, but I forced myself to attend. More questions, more answers, and finally, the head magistrate handed down a decision: Bucky was to continue meeting with military and civilian officials, and representatives of the UN, and giving them all the information he had on HYDRA locations, personnel, and actions, and on people whose deaths they had been responsible for. I breathed a silent prayer of thanks she phrased it that way, rather than laying the blame on Bucky. The court declared its intent to make arrangements with the Avengers for him to, like Wanda and Pietro, work with them, as a sort of community service. They mandated he continue seeing Dr. Rausch, which he readily agreed to do, and directed him to stay at the tower until an effective approach was found to remove the trigger words implanted in his subconscious. He smiled and nodded and hit all the right beats, and as I was winding down and feeling really proud of him, the court adjourned, and he was—gone. _Damn, Winter Soldier, I reckon,_ I thought and turned to the screen where Nat and Sam looked equally baffled. “Poof,” Sam said. “What the fuck?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s embarrassed,” I retorted. “Really, Nat?”

Nat was unrepentant. “You’re pining. So is he. Do something about it. You’re driving everybody crazy.”

“I—We—He—” I could not get more than one word out of my face, I was so utterly gobsmacked. “Everybody, as in who? Just how many people got on your rom-com conspiracy train?”

“Pepper, Wanda and I developed the original plan,” Nat explained. “Pepper told Tony, I told Steve, Wanda told Pietro and Clint, and we put them all to work arranging…encounters.”

“How come I didn’t get to arrange an encounter?” Sam sulked, arms folded.

“Because you’re hardly ever there,” Nat scolded. “We needed boots on the ground, Wilson, diligent, not casual.”

“I can be diligent,” Sam argued.

I left them to bicker, and went out looking for Bucky. As I expected, though, he was nowhere to be seen, melted away like the season he was named for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The literal translation of Bucky's comment about Chrissy is ‘like a hen hovering over an egg’ lol. Don’t get mad at him! Just for the record, I’ll tell you something Chrissy doesn’t know yet: he is lying, that’s not what he thought when he saw her. :)


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, Chrissy and Bucky use their words!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note—in this chapter, Bucky discusses some issues he’s had with food since his escape from HYDRA. I don’t _think_ they would be considered triggering, but then I don’t have issues with food, other than trying to keep from eating too much of it. LOL. Again, just an FYI. Take care of you!

For the next three days I didn’t see hide nor hair of Bucky Barnes. It would have been more than worrying, if JARVIS hadn’t assured me (every time I asked, which was not an excessive amount; that’s what I told myself, anyhow) that he was fine and in the Tower. The AI liked him, and it was plain, was helping him steer clear of me. I hated that thought, but he had to do what he had to do.

Once I got past the anger at my friends butting into my nonexistent love life, I managed to bring myself to a point of acceptance. I loved each and every one of them, and they were only trying to help. Besides, who on earth could claim they had earth’s mightiest heroes trying to hook them up? It was a strange sort of compliment. “I know you all meant well,” I told Pepper when she tracked me down to apologize (the conspiracy grapevine worked well, obviously). “I’m just worried Bucky is taking it all wrong, and he thinks I set him up to, to mock him or something.”

“Chrissy, he would never! He’s liked you from the first day. I saw how he was watching you in the kitchen, that morning the boys brought him back.”

“Do you remember what I was wearing, sis? More'n likely he was wondering how come the Avengers’ cook dressed so badly.”

Pepper gave up, I supposed, and left with a sigh and an assurance that Bucky would not blame me for the failed matchmaking plot. The next day, though, I was in the team kitchen mixing up a batch of my infamous pimiento cheese when the air—shifted, for lack of a better term. There was no earthly way a man as big as Bucky should be able to move utterly without a sound. “Hey,” I said offhandedly. “Sandwich?”

“No.”

“It’s pimiento cheese. I told you about it last week, and you said you wanted to try it,” I reminded him. “We’ve got other fixings if you don’t like it, though, or—"

“I said no,” he said flatly, not looking at me. “I gotta go let Tony work on my arm some more.” He stalked out, and I couldn’t decide whether to be sad, or angry, or both. Both was good, I decided. Things needed to be said and I wasn’t letting this shit go on any longer. It was wearing me out. My watch gauntlet still needed a checkup, too. I stuck the bowl of sandwich spread in the fridge, wiped my hands, and headed for the elevator.

Outside the workshop, I paused. No headbanging music rattled the glass doors; Tony always turned his tunes down or off altogether when Bucky was there, to keep from overloading his super-soldier hearing. “JARVIS, I’m guessing Sergeant Barnes is here?”

“Affirmative, Miss Everhart.” Still, I hesitated, feeling all kinds of clumsy and trying to construct in my head something appropriate to say. 

Low voices found their way to my ear as I waffled; I didn’t know if Tony was used to having to project his voice to be heard over his normal blast of rock tunes, but over time I seemed to have developed a knack for hearing whatever he said when I was down there, even with practically a floor’s width between us. He was rattling on about the team’s outreach to street-level enhanced, particularly his ongoing search for the masked youngster he called Spider-Boy. “Kid’s made a suit out of sweats and a hoodie, looks like superhero Underoos, good try but pathetic really and can’t provide any protection…Um, Olaf, far be it from me to mention regular meals—glass houses, stones, and all that—but if your stomach growls like that again, we can record it and play it across the savannah to ward off predators.”

“Yeah, uh, Chris offered to fix me somethin’ but—it’s weird, _I’m_ weird, I know it, but when I was…They gave me enough slop to keep me functional, but no more. I ate what they gave me and couldn’t ask for nothin’ else, didn’t have enough—self-will, I guess?—to get more, or different, even when I was away from handlers. When I ran, was on the move and hidin’ out, that was one of the first ways I kind of started takin’ back some control over my life, gettin’ what I wanted to eat, eatin’ when I wanted, sometimes _not_ eatin’ just—because I could. Dr. Rausch said it made sense to her, but I know it doesn’t to anybody else. Hell, it hardly does to me an’ I—”

“When I got back from Afghanistan,” Tony said quietly, “the first thing I asked for,before a bath or my bed or anything else, was an American cheeseburger. The…the man I was held with, he cooked up what we were given and did a good job of it but…yeah, I think I kind of get it.”

“Huh.” Weird how Bucky could even make a grunt sound reflective. 

I bit my lip. “J, open up please?” The doors slid open and I strode in, calling out even though I knew JARVIS was probably announcing me. “Tony? I brought my watch, whenever you have a sec.”

Tony looked up from inspecting opened circuitry on Bucky’s arm, which lay across his work counter. “Great. I want to see what the fuck is up with it. Thought you were expecting it to sprout legs and walk down here under its own power. Not that I couldn’t modd it to do that, of course.”

“Of course.” I flicked his skull lightly with a finger.

“Ow. You’ve picked up abusive habits from your sister.”

“No, I already had those.” I looked over at Bucky, perched on a high stool beside the workstation. “You need moral support? Sorry I didn’t ask earlier.”

“’m good.” He still did not look at me, but his tone was more dejected than snappish. “Sorry I was short with ya.”

“It happens.” _Let’s not make this awkward,_ I told myself. “The sandwich offer still stands. Or whatever else you might want, whenever you want it.” I leaned just a bit on the words, hoping to convey my acceptance without having to admit to having overheard him opening up. Yes, sometimes I am a coward.

Confession didn’t seem needed, though. Bucky’s head came around sharply and his eyes met mine, wide with comprehension and not a little surprise, then flicked over toward Tony. _Busted_ , I thought with a mental sigh. I didn’t have to admit to anything, though, so I just smiled and went on my way.

Back in my office and up to my ass in alligators as the day progressed, I was banging out emails when JARVIS told me Bucky was on my floor. A few moments later, he appeared in the doorway. “You, um, I was gonna, y’know, go get a sandwich, and I thought maybe you could use a break? And you might want some company, ‘cause I’d sorta like some.”

I grinned to myself before I turned in my chair. “Yes to both, the break and the company.”

We meandered back down to the common kitchen and were hanging around, me drinking lemonade and Bucky demolishing the bowl of pimiento cheese, when an unfamiliar alarm went off. “Oh damn,” I groaned after a moment. “That’s the full-building system, not JARVIS! Something must be going on down on the SI floors. C’mon, we have to evacuate.” Grabbing his flesh hand (his fourth sandwich was in the other) I led him to the stairs and we humped it down the many flights to street level. It wasn’t until we burst out onto the sidewalk, surrounded by milling, grumbling scientists and accountants, that I thought to ask. “Bucky,” I said out the side of my mouth, “have you been…out of the tower, since you got here?” He shook his head without a word, his gaze darting around and his hand tightening on mine. I tugged at it gently and led him away from the crush of people, to a spot where two walls came together. “How about let’s stand over here, you can put your back to the corner and—”

Before I could finish, he turned us both, as effortlessly as a dance step, and pressed my back into the corner instead. “Better like this, I think,” he mumbled and stepped forward until he loomed over me. “Can’t see all the commotion, not as—overwhelmin’, I guess. If anythin’ comes up I can hear it, and I—I can protect you.”

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment…” I bit my tongue to cut myself off; for all that it was true, he was trying to be nice, and helpful, and didn’t need me reminding him how I hated to be hovered over. “Okay, then, this is fine. Look at me, listen to me, talk to me. You know me, maybe you can filter out the rest. Tell me about the last time you were in New York.”

“It was—pretty different. I didn’t know anythin’ more than what I needed to complete my mission. Walked around, barely registered anythin’ goin’ on around me. I don’t…don’t want this to trigger nothin’, Chris, it’s…”

“I know. I’m right here…Where’d that sandwich go? Into your stomach, I hope.”

“Yeah.” He managed a half-grin, and I took both his hands. “It was good. I’m sorry about how I acted before, I’m just so—”

“Don’t apologize. I heard what you told Tony, and it makes total sense. It’ll take some time for you to relearn how to people.” He blinked, frowned, then chuckled slightly. “Just focus, breathe, and we’ll be fine.” It wasn’t all that dissimilar from helping Tony through an anxiety attack, and I thought of how Tony had picked up that cue himself in Siberia and coached Bucky through a far worse incident. Unlike that day, though, Bucky clung to my hands like I was a life raft. “You liked the pimiento cheese, huh?” At his nod I launched into a lengthy series of stories about learning to cook from my mom, granny and aunties back home.

Minutes flew by, until from inside I heard the alarm stop its braying. Happy stuck his head out the front doors. “Stand down, everybody, and come on back in. Tony went to an R&D team meeting, they complained about the department microwave, he said he’d fix it, they stuck a bag of popcorn in to test it. Guess what? He didn’t.” His eyes nearly rolled out of his head. 

I giggled and Bucky stifled a snort. He was much calmer now, with any hint of potential crisis averted and the crowd thinned to the normal passersby. I took a step forward to leave our little cubby, but Bucky was looking up and down the street, with curiosity and not unease. “I wish I could go out,” he said unexpectedly. “Wish I could go out. Wish I could—could take you out.”

Cue the screeching phonograph needle sound in my brain. “Uh…whah?”

“I’m scared to, but I want to. I want it so bad. Time was, I was smooth with the dames, I could’ve taken you out, shown you a good time. That was the old Bucky, and I dunno if he even exists anymore, but I want him to ‘cause I like you. I don’t—"

“Wait. Okay. You like me. As in, _like-me_ like me?”

“Whatever that means. Yeah, I guess.” His hands released mine and came up to my face. “I like you a lot, Chris, an awful lot, and I would step out with you if I could…” I covered his hands with mine just before our lips met, and a shiver swept down my spine. Instantly he was backing away. “Aw, no, I’m sorry, I don’t want you to be afraid of me, although hell, _I’m_ afraid of me, an’ I know you couldn’t want—”

“Uh-uh. Bring that mouth right back here, mister.” This time I caught his face between my palms and pulled him back to me. His kiss was at once uncertain and thirsty. “I thought you were mad at me,” I whispered when I could breathe again. “Nat and the team being busybodies and trying to set us up, and I thought you thought I was behind it, and—”

“No, doll!” His lips nuzzled against my cheek. “I know better, no longer’n I’ve been knowin’ ya. There ain’t a deceitful bone in your body. ‘S what I like about ya. One thing, anyways.”

“Just one?” I almost felt safe enough to tease. 

The risk was rewarded by the slow mischievous smile that answered, his eyes lighting blue-grey like sun on Arctic ice. “One of a whole buncha things.” We might have stood there the rest of the day, if a pointed throat clear had not interrupted. 

As one, we turned to meet Happy’s glare, looking concerned but not really judgey (thank goodness). I winked at Bucky. “Uh oh, your boss isn’t happy. Pun intended.”

“He ain’t really my boss, y’know. Miss Potts is the big cheese. Lay off, Hogan, can’t’cha gimme a minute with my best gal?”

“Be glad to, if I wasn’t about to have to borrow one of Tony’s repulsors and sweep the sidewalks for paparazzi.” Happy propelled us toward the door. “Go on before you two lovebirds end up on page three of tomorrow's _Post_. I gotta text Pepper.”

“Another sandwich?” I asked as we crossed the tower lobby with my hand in his gloved metal one. I was at once a little shy and very proud of the eyes that followed us. 

“Back to work. Gotta go make sure Miss Potts is okay and see what else she got for me to do.” Outside the CEO suite, we paused, and Bucky drew me close to him. “I don’t want ya to get hurt on account of me, Chris,” he murmured.

“Shush. Not gonna happen. Quit worrying. Let’s just enjoy each other’s company, and see where this goes, huh?” 

He smiled again, and was about to kiss me when faintly but distinctly, from Pepper’s office, came “Shit, shit, shit!” 

We exchanged worried frowns and trotted down the hallway. I poked my head in her half-open door. “You all right, sis?” I asked.

Pepper looked up from her phone. “Oh! Uh, yeah, fine. Great, even. Just great.”

Bucky joined me. “That didn’t ‘xactly _sound_ great," he opined.

She fumbled and then burst out, “Happy won the pool.”

“The pool?” I cocked my head.

“The pool.” With her phone she pointed from me to Bucky and back, still looking annoyed but clearly fighting a smile.

That's when the awful truth hit me. "Pep...y'all had a _pool?_ "


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's healing proceeds apace, as does his and Chrissy's relationship.

I had to admit, I was baffled as to why every last one of the Avengers had gotten so invested in my and Bucky’s love lives that they were even making book on how long it would take for us to get over our mutual issues and get together. Not that I was complaining, understand, just a bit befuddled. 

“It’s not like we get that many positive things to cheer for,” Nat explained when I politely demanded an explanation. “I’d always believed love was for children, a weak and feeble thing. But then, I found this—” She waved a hand around the compound dining area where we sat, and by extension, I knew she meant the team. “This family, and I love them. Once you do that, I discovered, you want those you love to have what makes them happy. Being with him made you happy, I could tell.” 

“Can’t argue with that. Black Widow, lots of practice at observing.”

Nat chuckled around the straw in her milkshake. “And being with you makes him happy. He relaxes, he seems—most human. You’re good for each other.”

“I like to think so too,” I smiled. “He’s still got a ways to go though. He can’t leave the tower yet, we can’t go out on dates, and he’s still worried about those trigger words. It’s like carrying a bomb around, and you’re pretty sure it’s not going off but you aren’t positive it won’t.”

Nat hummed, but said no more on the subject. A couple of nights later, though, Bucky texted me. (Steve had taught him how. I was very proud of them both.) ::get dolled up & meet me on the roof.::

On the roof, I discovered, sat a table set for two, with crystal and china, flowers and electric candles, and Bucky in a sharp suit and a man-bun that set off his bone structure like a match to a fireworks stand. “Natalia said since I couldn’t take you out to a fancy joint, they’d bring a fancy joint here. Tony ordered in.” No sooner had the words come out than a waiter in a tux emerged through the Quinjet hangar access door carrying a tray stacked with dishes. He came, I discovered, from a high-end French restaurant Tony and Pepper liked, and proceeded to serve us one of the best meals I had ever eaten. Granted, the company helped. 

The weather was flawless, and I expected at any minute for an unwarned Avenger or three to wander up to take advantage of it, but nobody appeared. Emboldened by the privacy, I stole a few more kisses than I might otherwise have, over a chef’s menu that ranged from caviar to banana bread, from steak and grilled asparagus to baked fish and roasted tomatoes, and ended with passion fruit sorbet topped with an insanely rich dark chocolate cream. Secretly, I wondered if the tasting-menu format was Tony’s idea, so Bucky wasn’t confronted with an overload of choices. I could readily have swooned, however, when the waiter said something under his breath in French and Bucky instantly replied in kind. “Dare I ask what he said?” I inquired when the waiter blanched and scurried off.

“Somethin’ kinda disrespectful about Tony.”

“Do I want to know what you said back?”

He smirked. “Nope,” he said and popped a mussel in his mouth.

We adjourned to the edge of the roof, sitting with our feet dangling off dozens of stories up, sipping our wine and looking down at the city. I was in the middle of recounting how I had first met the Avengers, on the day of the Chitauri attack, when I noticed Bucky’s attention no longer on me. Instead, he was gazing far away with a small intent frown. As I watched, the frown deepened, and then morphed into a little gasp, wide-eyed. “Bucky? Are you okay? I didn’t say something that upset you, did I?”

“No, oh no. I—just remembered somethin’.” He patted his pockets and grumbled. “Dammit, I didn’t stick a pad in here—” He scrambled to his feet, caught my hand and towed me to the door inside. I waved to the baffled waiter as we passed, guessing where we were bound. Sure enough, Bucky made a beeline for his suite on the Brooklyn floor. “I gotta write things down, y’know, soon’s they come to me, ‘cause sometimes otherwise they get lost…” He grabbed a notebook off a side table, along with a slightly gnawed pencil stub, and flopped onto the couch. “You talkin’ reminded me, we heard about the, what’d you say, Chitauris. The HYDRA base I was at was in Guatemala, we had satellite television and they watched it. Some of ‘em wanted to call in the local agents here to help; they figured better any humans in charge at all than fuckin’ aliens. The big guns nixed that though—wanted to wait an’ see what happened, figured maybe they could go Vichy if worse came to worse.”

I sat down beside him and nodded as he scribbled. “I can see those bastards taking sides against their fellow humans, yeah.” After that I kept quiet and just watched him write, pause to think, glare at the rapidly blunting pencil point, scratch out, erase, mumble in a couple of languages, and finally relax his shoulders with a sigh. “You’re running low on pages,” I commented; only three blank sheets were left in the spiral notebook.

“Yeah, gotta ask Stevie to get me some more. Mr. Singh, Tony’s lawyer that’s been helpin’ me, says I got a ton of back pay comin’ once the brass hats get my paperwork filed, so punk’s runnin’ me a tab.” I laughed, knowing full well Steve would never ask for a penny back that he spent on Bucky. We flipped through pages, Bucky reading me snippets here and there on memories that had returned to him over the months and years since his escape from his captors. The notes were written with whatever had been handy, pencil, pen, magic marker, even a few in crayon. 

“Lemme show you somethin’,” he said. “Here’s what I wrote down, the night I saw that interview on TV with the Avengers.” There was Steve’s name, in full, with CAPT AMERICA beside it; Nat’s, with _Natasha—Natalia—Nathalia??_ underneath, and Tony’s, with STARK underlined several times so emphatically the paper was almost torn through, and several almost illegible words next to it. “I knew there was something about the Stark name, but not what. I…I couldn’t remember, until in Siberia, when Zemo ran that surveillance video, and it hit me. I expected Tony to bust me up, and figured I deserved it.”

“You didn’t know he already knew, and he knew it wasn’t your fault,” I said gently.

“He’s a good fella,” Bucky agreed, gazing down at the page. He started to close the book, then stopped. One metal finger traced some scratching below that I couldn’t make out. “A lot of these notes’re in Serbian,” he explained. “That’s where I was at the time. I remember hearin’ the English, and seein’ subtitles on the little TV screen. This is what I wrote down watchin’ you.”

“Well, you already told me what you thought of me.” I shoved him with a snicker. It had about as much effect as pushing on a brick wall. 

“No. I didn’t. I, um, kind of lied. Actually, I just plain lied.” I tilted my head in puzzlement. “I didn’t think you were anybody’s momma hen. This says ‘who’s that woman…sharp, takin’ care of Stark…beautiful…deserves a kiss’.” My mouth dropped open, until Bucky claimed it. His man-bun went by the wayside when my fingers curled into his hair, and we sat like that for a good while. The notebook started to slide; I caught it before it went to the floor and laid it on the nearest flat surface, which was a big chest/coffee table, then replaced it on his lap with myself.

We sat and kissed and murmured for a while, but when I started to shift to straddle him, Bucky’s metal arm went under my hips and the next thing I knew I was being settled back down onto the couch. “I’m—I’m not ready for that, yet,” he stammered. “I’ve…Whenever I touched, or got touched, for such a long time, it’s been to hurt somebody, or to hurt me, and I don’t want to risk hurting you by accident, or, I dunno, this thing in my brain goin’ off—” 

He looked away, his breath sharp and heaving. I caught his face with one hand and urged him back toward me. “I’m not fragile, darlin’, and I don’t believe you would hurt me, or anybody, on purpose, ever. But I completely understand you needing time to get comfortable with yourself, to keep learning how to people again. Sex is a nice part of a relationship, but it’s far from the only or even most important part. When you’re ready, I’m here for you. If you’re not, I’m still here.”

The look of silent wonderment on his face nearly brought tears to my eyes. Okay, actually, it did, but not until we had said good night and I got back to my apartment. I almost asked JARVIS to get Bucky some new notebooks, but then I got a better idea. Instead, I hauled Pepper off to the fountain pen store downtown near Wall Street where she loved to linger, and enlisted her help to pick out a pen. I eyed gorgeous vintage pieces that dated back to his day, but Pep steered me to new models, solidly built and easier to use and clean. With it, I picked out a couple of bottles of ink and a nice notebook with an old-fashioned world map on its cover, bundled them all up in a fancy gift bag and presented them to a dumbfounded Bucky. “New stuff,” he declared, “oughta be used for new things. Stuff I’m learnin’ now that I want to remember is goin’ in here.”

True to his word, he began to fill the pages with information, things he’d been shown or learned, things he’d seen or heard, things he liked—and did not like, which was just as important. I started carrying a small memo pad and a pen around too, and the next time we were together and a repeat of the roof incident began to play out, I simply pulled it out and handed it to him, to transcribe later. (Yes, Pepper got me hooked on fancy fountain pens and pretty colored inks, once I discovered they don’t all cost a month’s salary. My favorite one looks like a purple shark and cost four dollars.)

When he found out, Tony pointed out, in a small and only half-serious snit, that Bucky could always ask JARVIS to make note of things, the way he himself did. “Sure thing, buddy,” Bucky agreed, “but I remember better this way. I read about this, one time. You remember things best if your brain files ‘em away in several places. I write, so I use my muscles; them I read it back, that gets my eyes involved; and then I read it again but out loud, so my ears’re in on the game too. ‘Sides, I hope I won’t be stuck in your tower ‘round the clock, nice as it is and good as you are to me, for ever!” Tony winced and backed off. Bucky hastened to assure him he knew Tony only meant to help, whereupon Tony promptly offered to build him a custom StarkPen, that could learn his handwriting, make digital copies of his notes, and probably make coffee. Bucky politely declined, and warmed my heart when he turned my pen over in his fingers and smiled to himself.

A couple of pictures snapped in the tower lobby the day of the fire alarm, of Bucky and me walking hand in hand, made it onto social media, but I waved questions off at the next press briefing. “It was unexpected, and we happened to be in the same place at the same time. So, what, I was supposed to leave him to flounder, when it was just as easy to show him where we were supposed to go, and be there as a support? The Avengers consider me one of them, I’m going to behave like it.” Nobody else followed up on it, and the media seemed to let it go in the days that followed. Our relationship was nobody’s damn business but ours, I told Bucky later on, and I was not the least bit ashamed, I just wanted privacy.

“Nobody’s business but ours, and half the superheroes in town,” he returned dryly. “Tony wants to know if we wanna go on a double date with him and Miss—ahem, with Pepper. Maybe I shouldn’t of told him Dr. Rausch says she thinks I’m about ready to start gettin’ out?” He looked torn, partly anxious and partly excited.

In typical Tony Stark fashion, he rented out an entire restaurant, a little Italian place in an amazing old church building in the theater district. Happy drove us up the narrow alley alongside and we slid in the back door. After the server regaled us with the century-plus history of the building and took our orders, Pepper’s and my admiration of the beautiful stained glass windows was interrupted by Bucky asking Tony, “Okay, buddy, did you pick this place on purpose ‘cause it’s one of the few buildings still standin’ in town that’s older than me?” Tony cackled and nearly rolled out of his seat laughing.

That was how the evening went, snark alternated with Bucky telling tales about shit Steve got into back in the day, and Pepper responding in kind with tales of shit Tony got into. When Bucky recounted how a Jewish kid in his boyhood neighborhood kept getting bullied, until ninety soaking-wet pounds of Steve Rogers, hacking through an asthma attack, got himself beaten up (again) standing up for the boy, I said, “Huh, reminds me of somebody else I know. Pep, has Rhodey ever told you the story about this racist junior-thug at MIT who hassled him, and how his roommate, who if I recall correctly he described as a wild-haired sleep-deprived little bundle of rage, went after the guy?”

“No!” Pepper gasped. “Really?” Ignoring Tony’s frantic attempts to wave me off, I told the yarn as Rhodey had told it to me on our first date. “That is the most wonderful thing ever.”

Tony was about to crawl under the table, until Pepper turned that admiring gaze on him. I poked a chuckling Bucky. “You liked old cartoons, didn’t you? What’s that look like to you?”

“Hah, the ol’ heart eyes thing,” he agreed. “No wonder Steve and Tony get along like a house afire. They were both little punks. Well, they’re both still punks, just, Stevie ain’t little anymore.”

“Exactly what are you implying, Barnes?” Tony growled in fake indignation. The fake was completely undermined by the grin that kept trying to bust loose, of course.

Full of pasta, we rolled ourselves into the car when Happy returned and cruised toward Times Square. Tony stifled a burp and pointed out one window and down Shubert Alley. “Now over there, Frosty, is some of the best cheesecake in New York City.”

“Oh, Junior’s!” Pepper exclaimed. “You’re right, it’s great. Could we call and order one for the tower?”

Bucky grinned until Tony and Pepper turned to debating what flavors they would order (because there was no way they were only ordering one cheesecake, even with just the four of us plus Steve currently lodging in the tower). Then he sobered, and his gaze shifted back out the window at the bright lights of theaters and bars and clubs and shops. “Something wrong?” I asked. “If you’re lactose intolerant, you better tell ‘em before they get too fond of this idea.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” he retorted but with no snap. “Naw, I just…the cheesecake was right there, an’ if things…if I was normal, we could’ve just walked over there, with all the folks out goin’ to shows an’ kickin’ up their heels.”

“We’ll do that,” I promised him, folding my hands around his metal one, and kissing his cheek. “We will, soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The French restaurant Tony booked for Chrissy and Bucky's dinner date on the roof is called Gabriel Kreuther, https://www.gknyc.com/ 
> 
> The waiter mumbled something to himself, assuming neither of them would understand, about rich people being weird, and Bucky replied "you should probably watch what you say about the person paying the bill, especially when you’re on their property. It’s a long way down to the street" :D not like Bucky was gonna yeet him over the side, more like 'we could ask you to leave and not pay if you are a jackass'. If the waiter chose to interpret it as Bucky threatening to yeet him over the side, well, Bucky figures that’s the waiter's problem, not his. LOL
> 
> The Italian one where they double date with Tony and Pep is called John's of Times Square. http://www.scoutingny.com/americas-largest-pizzeria-is-in-a-19th-century-times-sq-church/   
> I have been there and it truly is awesome. 
> 
> Tony and Pep are on the money about the cheesecake at Junior's, imho, too. https://www.juniorscheesecake.com/
> 
> Bucky's absolutely right about the steps you can follow to help you remember things. Here’s the pen Chrissy chooses for him: it's called the Bexley Patriarch, probably the green one, from this very store. It's new, but has a classic look: https://www.fountainpenhospital.com/Index_Showcase.asp?BOD=/collections/collection.asp%3FCK%3D1978%26MFG%3D8 
> 
> but here’s hers: https://www.gouletpens.com/products/jinhao-993-shark-fountain-pen-purple  
> Chrissy takes her work very seriously, but not herself.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper shares a secret with Chrissy; Bucky becomes more comfortable with touch; and A WILD SPIDERLING APPEARS.

Having a new ‘beau’, as Pepper insisted on saying, did not shorten my work days, of course, or take up all of my life and time. Pep rescued me one day from a snarling in-box and bundled me off to Tony’s dungeon. “Tell me again why we’re sneaking down here?” I inquired.

“Tony’ll be gone for a while—he thinks he’s finally identified Spider-Man, and he’s off to ‘make contact’ as he says. I just hope he doesn’t scare the poor thing off. Anyway—I’ve got to show you something, and you can’t let Tony know you’ve seen it because he doesn’t even know I know yet.” We slipped in, and Pepper said, “JARVIS, access code 12252012 please?”

“Are you quite certain, Miss Potts?” the AI asked.

“Quite. I know Tony wants to surprise me, and I promise we won’t spoil it,” she replied. 

With that, a bay in the back wall where Tony stored his suits slid open. Inside was—well, it was an Iron Man suit, but it wasn’t. Instead of his iconic red and gold paint job, it was done in silver and a shimmery violet-blue; it was slimmer, and distinctly…curvy. “Pep—is this yours?” 

“Mm-hm. Tony’s had Bucky helping with it, and Bucky—for a master assassin, he has a hard time keeping a secret.”

“This is true. He blabbed to you about the cross-stitch I was making for your office before I even finished it.” I admired the suit some more. “It’s gorgeous. Does it do everything Tony’s suits do?”

“No, its gear is mostly for defense. Tony calls it Rescue. He’s…he’s been doing so much better, Chrissy, but you know as well as I do that he’s still haunted by this Thanos character. With several of those Infinity Stones here on earth, he’s sure the creep will show up sometime to try to get them. If he’s right, I’ll be here to back them up.” I nodded. “I never signed on to be a hero, but if this is as bad as Tony fears, it’s going to take every ounce of firepower we have.”

“Guess I’ll be hiding behind you, then, seeing as how I have no firepower, other than a watch gauntlet that’s fine when Tony tests it and poops out after a day on my arm,” I grumbled. “I declare, sometimes I wish, sort of, that Extremis hadn’t been a dud in me. If Tony and Bruce could’ve figured a way to tame it instead of killing it—well, neutering it—I’d have something to contribute when that day comes. Tony always says words are my superpower, but words aren’t gonna stop a megalomaniac.”

“Duck and cover, then, sis. I’ll watch your back, and you can explain it to everybody after the fact,” Pepper grinned and hugged me.

It wasn’t a surprise that Bucky had offered to help Tony with Rescue—he had been absolutely floored from his first gander at Iron Man and almost wept with delight when Tony let him get his hands on some simple circuitry. The way they were bonding thrilled me to my toes. It made sense, after all. After Afghanistan, Tony understood as few others could what it was like to be taken and used against his will, to be tortured, then come home from a life-shattering experience and have people, even those who loved him most, expect him to pick up right where you left off, not understanding that he wasn’t the same person they knew, not completely. As different as their experiences were, they were alike in a lot of quietly heartbreaking ways, and they seemed to understand that on a gut level.

On occasions when Tony worked on the arm, Bucky still asked me to come be his security blanket—literally, sometimes, when I ended up on his lap draped over his right side. Tony complained vociferously about public displays of affection corrupting his kids (as if the bots hadn’t gotten an eye sensor full for years. He may not have known I knew, but Pep had shared a lot more 411 with me over the years we had been friends than just the existence of her flying suit of armor). Bucky proclaimed his jealousy that Tony was ambidextrous, and I picked up a few cuss words in Russian.

To be honest, of course, it wasn’t as if Bucky’s and my lives were all unicorns pooping rainbows. Some days felt like two steps forward and one back, or two back, or a brief but near-total retreat. Invariably, though, after a flashback, or a nightmare, or an anxiety attack, he would, alone or, more often, with me beside him, pick himself up and start to advance again. It took a while to persuade him I was just as happy when we sat side by side quietly for an evening, both reading, or him tinkering with some bit of tech Tony had shown him and me cross-stitching, as I would have been dressed to the nines at some fancy club. (Truth be told, I was happier with the first, most of the time, and the times I wasn’t, nobody was going to know it.)

It also took a while to convince him that sleeping together could just be _sleeping_ together, and that I didn’t mind that in the least either. Hell, it had been a while since I’d had sex anyway, and even longer since I’d had good sex (shout out to Colonel Rhodes). Frankly, I’d gotten out of the habit of getting laid. Debunking Bucky’s conviction that if he fell asleep around me, he would wake up from a nightmare and clobber me, took another little while. Tony had worked out a system for JARVIS to observe and intervene if it looked like Bucky might hurt himself getting out of a bad dream, but Bucky still fretted. (He also admitted, “JARVIS is a great guy, to not be human an’ all, but I really don’t want him watchin’ if—when—we—canoodle, y’know?” I managed not to cackle, but it really was adorable.)

One night we stayed up till the ass-crack of dawn playing poker, and conked out on the common floor’s huge couch. I woke to watery early light and Bucky mumbling and thrashing, and his arm swung around when I cautiously went to soothe him, but it wasn’t a hard blow or a fast one. I blocked it easily and held his hand while I murmured in his ear until he came fully awake. “What the fuck, doll. I busted a hole in the mattress one night not long after I got here, fightin’ dream things. I keep tellin’ ya, I could kill ya!”

“Obviously,” I countered, “your subconscious recognizes I’m not a dream-thing, or an inanimate object, and it responds accordingly. Now, I’m going back to sleep, I have to get up in a couple of hours. So, hush.” I kissed him, plopped my head on his chest, and tried not to snicker out loud at the befuddled _hmph_ I heard.

Bucky’s comfort level with touch of any kind, but especially intimate touch, progressed as haphazardly as his headway in other areas. I was in no rush, though. Just being with him and sharing the baby steps—the synthetic skin glove Tony made for his arm, actively cuddling, our first tentative dates for a meal or coffee at the tower lobby shops—brought me joy. On one of those days, the week after Pepper showed me Rescue, we were moseying through the lobby after lunch when Bucky stuck a finger in his mouth. “Got chicken stuck between my back teeth,” he mumbled around it.

“Josefina keeps a bag of Plackers in her drawer,” I said, angling toward the receptionist’s desk. She wasn’t there, probably getting her own lunch, but I remembered where I’d seen her reach. We went behind the desk and I pulled a little green plastic flosser out and offered it to him. He glared at it. “I dunno how that works. Just, don’t people have toothpicks any more? Jesus, twenty-first century!”

While I strove not to burst into giggles that would echo all over half the floor, I was saved by the approach of a slim teenage boy with a backpack thrown over one shoulder. “Excuse me, I’m, uh, here to see Mr. Stark? He, ah, came to see me about a, an internship, with Stark Industries.”

I let one eyebrow drift upward, just a little, not enough to alarm. So was this a prank, or something darker? It was common knowledge Pepper and not Tony ran SI, obviously (except among the few piglets who were still convinced she was a figurehead he put up to kowtow to PC’ness. Or that she slept her way to CEO. The one time that particular speculation was brought up in a presser, I laughed so hard I literally had to sit down on the edge of the dais), so she and not he would sign off on interns. Less commonly known was that there was no SI internship program, although, not known at all other than to Avengers and the inner circle dubbed Team Stark, Tony was planning to start one in the near future in memory of Charlie Spencer.

Without a noticeable look over, I could see in my periphery Bucky still grumbling and fiddling with the Placker. I also knew, though, that he was observing and taking in everything being done and said. _Lord God, thank you so much for sending him to me, for so many reasons, not the least of which being if this is a junior assassin, the brat won’t stand a chance._

In the way thoughts have of seeming to take much longer than they actually do, all that went through my head in the space between two heartbeats. I eyed the fidgety youth and put on my best media-ready smile. “Well, I’m not the receptionist, but I’ll be happy to call your arrival in. Is Tony expecting you?”

“Um, yeah!” he surprised me by replying, while staring around him in frank awe. “My name’s, um, Peter Parker.” Well, I had my doubts as to how much of that was true, even the name, but I could ask JARVIS to find out. I picked up the phone, since we didn’t address J out loud in public areas, but froze when the boy unslung his backpack with a quick jerky motion. “Maybe this’ll—”

Bucky put himself between the other male and me in less time than it takes to say it. “Easy there, short stuff.”

He feigned a casual motion to rest his metal arm on the ledge of the receptionist’s desk with a _thunk_ that nobody not in the know would pick up. The boy tensed and started to pull his other hand that was resting there away, then halted, his expression morphing from nervousness to near panic. Under the shabby but clean jacket’s sleeve, I could see his arm tense, and then tense again, though his hand remained flattened on the desk’s edge as though glued there—

My brain stuttered to a brief halt as it assembled pieces. “Take it easy, Bucky,” I said and laid my hand on his shoulder. “I think we’re good, no threat here.” He cut his eyes at me, but pressed no further, though he didn’t stand down completely, not that I expected him to.

“Bucky…” The boy’s eyes widened, and he set the backpack down to poke a finger of his free hand at Bucky’s forearm, demonstrating a total lack of self-preservation skills that Tony would have envied. “I didn’t think that sounded like flesh. You’re the Winter Soldier.” His head lowered with a look of curiosity and focus, then jerked up to stare at me, his mouth flying open. “And you’re—you’re Christine Everhart. Oh wow. WinterWord really is a thing. Ned’s gonna die!” Bucky scowled, uncomprehending, but my stomach began to do its best impression of the back-lobby elevator. The boy gestured between the two of us. “Winter Soldier, wordsmith—that’s what Mr. Stark calls you so it’s gotten around. It’s a portmanteau, a—”

“A ship name,” I finished. “I know what it is. People…are shipping us?” At the boy’s emphatic head nod, I could not, despite the continued uncertainty of the moment, suppress giggles. I did, however, manage to suppress the urge to hide my face in Bucky’s broad shoulder and let the laughs go altogether. “Well, well. People do say interesting things online, and make up interesting names for things. Like relationships.” I nudged the boy’s hand where it lay on the desk; sure enough, it didn’t budge. “And masked civilians in spider outfits who climb up walls like they’re stuck to them. You can usually control it better than this, I would hope, otherwise the adults in your life are in for some kind of a ride.”

The panic overtook his fresh face again. “Uh…I think the appropriate thing to say here is probably ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’?”

“If anybody was near enough to overhear this conversation, it most certainly would be,” I told him. “Seriously, you don’t get stuck like that much, do you?”

“No. Just sometimes, when I’m, um, nervous.” He wiggled one finger and finally got the hand loose. Tony was probably salivating at the prospect of finding out how that whole thing worked, assuming he didn’t already know (and I assumed nothing where what Tony knew was concerned). 

“No need to be nervous, sweetie,” I assured him. “Hold on and I’ll find out where Tony is.”

Any residual doubts were erased when JARVIS put me through to the workshop and Tony whooped, “The spiderling! Bring him down, cornbread!”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers adopt Peter. (What, like, you didn't think they would?) Bucky starts to expand his horizons.

As it emerged, while Pepper had been showing off her Rescue suit on the sly, Tony had been visiting a little apartment in Queens, the location he had tracked his ‘spider-kid’ to. Orphaned at ten, Peter Parker lived with his aunt and uncle until his uncle’s death; that explained his worn but tidy appearance, with his aunt, a nurse, working full-time to keep them both up. Somehow the kid had managed to get bitten by an irradiated spider in a lab at the science magnet school he attended, and had wound up, as he put it, “really strong, and kind of sticky”.

With those weird new abilities as a jumping-off point, Peter had formulated a liquid synthetic spider-webbing and bracer-like wristbands that squirted it, assembled the (slightly pitiful) suit that Tony called a onesie, and set out to be a local helper. He had acted admirably as a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”, until Tony tracked him down. His Aunt May knew nothing about his secret identity, and he wanted to keep it that way for now.

Tony agreed. He was discreetly leading the UN negotiators he worked with on the Accords, to develop common-sense guidelines and protections for persons who developed enhancements while under legal age in their home countries. “I don’t like what the kid is doing,” he explained to the other Avengers in the next team teleconference. “But I definitely have the sense that he’s gonna do it no matter what. So, better he have adult supervision and backup than be out there wilding. I’m the last person on the planet who needs to have any kind of influence over kids—”

“Too late,” Pepper put in with a near-smirk. She was in on the discussions, since the currently-fictional SI internship was going to provide cover for Peter to be at the Tower regularly, to train with Avengers and learn from them. “He’s already imprinted on you. Don’t you see how he follows you around like a duckling?”

“I was barely older than him when I started trying to join the army,” Steve put in, “and I think you’re right, Tony. From talking to him, he’s, well, as stubborn as I was back then, so it’s best that we stay close.”

“Yep, he reminds me of you too, punk,” Bucky added. “Wantin’ to fight things three times his size, just less angry.” Steve took a good-natured swing at him. “He’s a wise-ass too. Petey, I mean,” Bucky went out while wrestling Steve’s fist away from his face. “Th’other day when they met, Stevie asked him wasn’t he a lil’ young to wanna be an Avenger. Kid said ‘I dunno, aren’t you a lil’ old to be alive?”

“I know if I could’ve had a real support network as a kid,” Clint added from his farm, toddler on his lap, after the cackles died down, “something better than a gang of circus carnies, I might not have taken so long to get my head on straight.” After a momentary pause to check Nathaniel’s diaper, he continued, “Nat, you’re awful quiet over there.”

In another corner of the video screen, Nat gave a small but expressive shrug from the compound. “I’m…not comfortable with children being combatants. It reminds me too much of my own past, I suppose. I haven’t had an opportunity to speak with Peter, though, and if the rest of you feel he’s going to continue being a ground-level hero with or without our backing, then having him under our collective eye will certainly be the best option.”

“You’ll love him, Nat,” Pepper said. “The next time you’re in town, I’ll try to make sure he’s around. In fact, you should meet his aunt too. I’ve talked with May a couple of times, since we’ll need her approval for the ‘internship’.”

“She’s a pistol,” Tony nodded. “A very attractive pistol.”

Pepper pursed her lips in an expression that on anybody else would have conveyed angry disapproval, but in context, I knew was just her trying not to encourage Tony by letting him make her laugh. “And as far as May goes: Sooner or later, she's going to find out. It’s not our place to tell her, and we don't have any legal obligation to do so, but I don’t know that it’s our place as adults to help him hide it from her either. She trusts me to ‘rein you in’ as she says, as a mentor for Peter, and keep an eye on him—on both of you, really; please don’t blow the Tower up now that you have a new playmate. Maybe you can broach the subject with him, feel him out about how he feels about bringing her into the loop.”

“I can do that,” Tony assented. “See, this is why you make the big bucks, Potts. I don’t adult very well.”

A small snort of amusement finally got away from Pepper. “I was also thinking, when he’s comfortable with her knowing, she might be less anxious if she was around here. She’s an ER nurse, which is high-stress and low-paying—lower than it should be, certainly—and Julia, our lead staff nurse, is moving in a few weeks. I could offer May the job, and even pay for her to study to get her nurse practitioner certification if she wants.”

Tony brightened. “Between that, and the paid internship, no more dumpster diving for our spiderling! I like it.”

“I’m going to casually mention at my next regularly scheduled press availability that the Avengers are now affiliated with Spider-Man, and that we’ll be handling public relations, social media and marketing for him,” I told the group. “Peter doesn’t want to make any money off his abilities, and that includes licensing, so I’m going to work with him on some charitable outlets. He wants to help sick kids, and those orphaned by violence.”

“Clearly the boy is thoughtful,” Vision said from his seat beside Nat. “That bodes well for his future as a hero, I think.”

He smiled at Wanda, sitting next to me, who smiled back. “I think so too,” she agreed. “Pietro and I have talked to him. It’s nice having someone closer to our age—not to say that you are not great friends to us, all of you, but—he lost his parents young, as we did, and he has had no one to talk to who suffered anything similar.” Faces sobered and heads nodded around the room. “On the other hand, he and Pietro are already plotting experiments to see how their beloved science and my magic can work together, which terrifies me,” she added dryly. Her brother elbowed her as we all chuckled.

From there, the talk turned to the ongoing mission to make contact with more of what Nat had dubbed ground-level heroes. People chimed in with reports and encounters: a bulletproof guy, several ninjas, and more. Sam mentioned somebody he knew out in San Francisco, who could shrink, apparently? That sounded seriously cool, and I reminded myself to track that person down and meet him sometime. 

May Parker did take the job as SI staff nurse, and I got acquainted with her through Pepper. She was sassy and an absolute delight. One of her best qualities was that she harbored no fear or favor for anybody, including superheroes; she showed the same degree of respect to the maintenance department as she did to Captain America. Steve was thrilled. “You have no idea,” he told her, “how nice it is to get treated like any joe on the street for a change.”

The Avengers collectively adopted Peter. Pepper was right about him and Nat; he won her over immediately with his sweet nature, and before long we had nicknamed her ‘mama spider’. That did not mean she went easy on him when she offered to spar with him, because she wasn’t about to let him get hurt. His speed and agility, plus quick healing that rivaled our super-soldiers, kept him from harm in nearly every situation, though. Steve and Bucky got a Brooklyn versus Queens rivalry going with him, that was as serious as a heart attack for about two minutes at a time before they both tackled him with hugs. Bucky confided one night that it really was a little bit like having the best of both worlds back in his life: Steve as he was now, his beloved brother in arms, and Peter reminding him so much of Steve in their youth, a little dog with a big dog’s heart. Taken under the wings of the Maximoffs, Peter quickly became the ringleader of assorted pranks that kept things light even after arduous team missions.

Saying Peter trailed Tony like a duckling didn’t begin to describe the relationship I saw begin to grow between them. Tony could talk till he was blue in the face about how unsuitable he was as a mentor, but he’d always been more concerned for other people’s needs than his own. Combine that with being the only Avenger for whom Peter had a bad case of hero-worship, and—well, Peter obviously reveled in getting a whole set of super-powered pseudo-siblings, but when Bucky playfully called Tony and him Iron Dad and Spider Son, it was as true a thing as I had ever heard come from anybody’s mouth. 

Tony’s newly uncovered paternal streak was never so obvious as when the Avengers were called out on a mission, especially if Tony suited up to help out. “I’m semi-retired,” he said. “That means I’m retired, unless something bigger than a semi comes along.” Peter chafed at being left behind, but Tony was adamant. “You’re not ready, Underoos. Stay close to the ground.” On those days, Peter ended up sitting in my office spinning around in a desk chair, texting his friends or hanging from my ceiling, or with Bucky. At first they sparred a lot during those times, but later, I would find them playing video games or just sitting and talking. It was no surprise they reacted similarly to being excluded; both had enhanced abilities, but neither was allowed to use them to the extent they wanted to. _At least eventually they can_ , I thought with a hint of bitterness. _I’ll always end up explaining and cleaning up afterwards_. Then I kicked myself for being ungrateful for the gifts that I had been given.

Peter helped Bucky in his own way, suggesting low-key places to go and events to partake of, as we started to get our soldier out of the tower more. As Bucky began to feel more comfortable on the go, people took turns going with him. Tony and Pepper took him shopping, he and Steve went sightseeing, and finally, he and I started to go places together, on jaunts that began to feel like real dates. We covered the neighborhood within walking distance of the tower; bodega owners got to know Bucky well enough that old ladies smiled, knowing he was unfailingly polite, and cheerful merchants pulled out everything they had to appeal to his sweet tooth.

“Wish I could…do somethin’ like that,” he told me one day while we were walking back with huge cookies in our hands. “I spent so many years destroyin’ things, hurtin’ people. I wish I could make stuff. Build, create, you know? But I don’t have any skills along those lines, nothin’ like how Steve can draw, or Tony can build his suits.” 

I suggested some hobbies, but nothing appealed. When he made a similar comment to Pepper, though, she, to no one’s surprise ever, had an idea. “Would you be interested in teaching a self-defense class for SI employees?” she asked. It was a great notion, I thought; he was beginning to accept that the proficiencies HYDRA had forced on him could be turned to do more than harm, by his teaching me swordplay, and this might help even more. “Who’s going to mess with the mousiest secretary in the building,” Pepper finished, “if they know the Winter Soldier is training all the staff to protect themselves?”

Bucky was uncertain, but agreed to “give it a whirl”. His whirl was probably better than a lot of people’s best! Watching him patiently coach timid desk jockeys through how to use their palm to whack an attacker’s chin, or how to hold their hand just so and aim for an Adam’s apple or temple, to buy enough time to run—and he always emphasized that; _you ain’t heroes, you just wanna stay alive_ —warmed my heart.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky makes connections back in Brooklyn and finds an outlet for his wish to create instead of destroy. Later, he and Chrissy visit Peter's home and Chrissy makes a surprising discovery!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would be writing this part right now, wouldn't I? 0_o

On one of Clint’s visits, Bucky asked him cautiously if we could go with him to Bed-Stuy while he checked on his apartment building. “Last time I was in Brooklyn, at least that I knew I was in Brooklyn, was before I left for the war,” he said. “Probably been there since then, in the body anyhow, but not, y’know, with my head in the same place, and knowin’ it was home.”

Steve came too, to show his bestie some of the changes, good and bad, in their old stomping grounds. “They’ve got just about everything here now,” he told Bucky. “Shops that sell nothin’ but pickles, shitty old warehouses that are rigged up inside with tech that’d make Tony pause, party spaces on rooftops—”

“We had those, Stevie, remember?” Bucky retorted with a grin as we walked down a sidewalk taking in smells of fresh bread and coffee and cut flowers—and dirt! “Just not fancy parties. Hey, lookit, those folks’re plantin’ a garden!” Sure enough, a sign proclaimed it a community garden, and a crew of neighbors from little kids to elders were busy as bees, until they spotted Captain America. Work went by the boards for a few minutes, while he and Clint greeted and talked.

Bucky hung back and I stayed with him, sipping a kombucha and watching the show. “If we stick around much longer, they’re liable to have Steve digging rows,” I chuckled.

“Yep. Wish they’d’a done this when we lived here. When I was a kid, I went through, you’d call it a phase I guess, wantin’ to be a forest ranger. We had lots of boys’ novels, always showin’ the brave fella with the latest gadgets, fightin’ the evil characters settin’ fires an’ trying’ to take over all the land. He usually had a spunky gal in his life, an’ they rode off into the sunset together at the end.” He aimed a cocky little smirk that was enough to make my knees wobble. “Course, with all my family packed into our lil’ apartment, we barely had room for a rubber tree plant.”

Several older children were sorting through seed packets nearby, and one young girl cautiously approached. “Would you like to help us plant?” she asked Bucky. “We’ll show you how.” He started to back off, but I gave him a gentle nudge, and in a minute, he was happily pawing through the dirt with them and tenderly nestling plants into halved whiskey barrels and old tires filled with soil.

That was just the beginning. By the time we finally hauled him home, he was grimy-handed and beaming. Visits to the garden became regular occurrences for us. “I love it,” he told me. “Handlin’ those lil’ green things—that’s what I was talkin’ about. Helpin’ things live, instead of causin’ things to die. It’s calmin’, the folks don’t mind me, an’ it helps me work on a soft touch.”

Naturally, once Tony found out, he was all in to support the garden—not with labor (Rhodey swore that in their college days, Tony had killed a silk ficus in their dorm at MIT) but with funds, supplies, and publicity. When Bucky coaxed him to come along, he and the kids ended up designing a scarecrow bot to keep varmints out of the veggies. Pepper tagged along the next time, and came back full of ideas to put a plot on the tower roof; the next time I dropped by her office, her nose was buried in a book on organic gardening, and she was sketching out planting benches and compost bins.

The day a couple of reporters showed up, the neighborhood was thrilled—until the kids realized they were more interested in hounding Bucky about whether it was safe for him to be allowed around children. Then, the small bodies formed a solid front and refused to let them anywhere near us. “Can’t you see we are busy?” Jamalla, the girl who had first befriended Bucky, said with hands on her narrow hips and a glare that bode well for her future as a leader. “We weren’t gonna let anybody run drag on our homie,” she told me, still adorably huffy, after they left. Bucky decided she was his. “I ain’t nobody’s,” she informed him, which made him love her all the more. He just couldn’t resist fierce small people, apparently.

Another day, I had just gotten a deal settled with some folks who wanted licensing for a line of Avengers=themed rubber ducks, and was about to head for the subway station with Bucky to catch a train to Brooklyn when Pepper texted me in a tizzy. ::do you know if Peter’s here today? May’s gone for the day and she left her purse!:: He wasn’t, but after clearing it with Bucky, I told her we could make a side trip to Queens and drop it off. Fortunately May had had her phone in her pocket, so Pep gave her a heads up. Bucky was better than he had been about sudden changes in plans, though he still didn’t like it, but then, who does.

He brightened considerably when May invited him in for coffee and dessert. “It’s a great pie, from the bakery down the block,” she said as she headed into the kitchen. 

Peter led us into the tidy little apartment’s living room. “We buy baked stuff a lot. She isn’t a very good cook,” he explained under his breath while showing us to the sofa. I reassured him with a smile; hospitality in the North wasn’t all that different from in the South, no matter what people seemed to think.

We chatted and shared the pie, my only concern being that neither Bucky nor I let slip anything regarding Spider-Man, since Peter was still waffling about when and how to break the news to his aunt. Peter introduced his buddy Ned who was hanging out with him: yes, the same Ned who was wise to our ship name. The boy looked about to trip over his own jaw with amazement at first, and then about to sink through the floor from embarrassment when Bucky razzed him about that.

They were working on a huge Lego set, Peter said. Bucky had never heard of Legos, and both boys were suitably appalled and dragged him off to Peter’s room to show off their project. May and I laughed at them and talked work for a few minutes. “I got to patch up an Avenger last week!” she said with some excitement. “Sam Wilson, the Falcon. Nice fella. Kept insisting it was just a scratch, until I told him to sit his ass down and I was going to stitch his leg closed. Do superheroes all swear they’re fine while they bleed out all over the carpet?”

“I wish I could say it was a guy thing,” I acknowledged, “but, yeah, pretty much. Natasha came back one time almost missing a toe, and I’m not sure she even noticed until she went to take a bath.”

May winced and laughed at the same time. “Stark said they didn’t have a full-time medical staff in the tower anymore, since the Avengers base is upstate now. But he’s still here, and Captain America and Mr. Barnes there—plus you mentioned they have local heroes working with them, like our Spider-Man—and when they all go out hero-ing, they need someone to apply the spackle and grout when they drag their body parts back, ya know? So, I offered to do that for them, at least when I’m already on site. Stark was…hesitant.” She shook her head. “What’s up with him? Does he think I’d, I dunno, rat them out to the tabloids or something?”

“Oh, no, May! I’m certain it’s not that.” Suddenly I had to tread lightly. I still despised lying, and the truth, or at least a truth, was the best option in such a situation anyway. “Tony, and the whole team really, have… confidences that have been entrusted to them. Like, you know Spider-Man wants to keep his identity a secret, for example. So while they would all be ecstatic to have you on call whenever you could be to mend their injuries, they’ll have to clear it with him for sure, and others they might fight alongside, beforehand.” I leaned close. “Tony’s like a brother to me, and I love him to pieces, but God bless him, his people skills just aren’t the best. I am positive it just did not occur to him that you would take his caution the wrong way. He thinks the world of you.”

“Yeah, well, I,” she let out a nervous little laugh, “don’t take this the wrong way but I can’t say the same, just yet? I don’t know the guy, and his reputation hasn’t been the best; but Pepper and I get together for lunch sometimes, and it’s like, the Tony Stark you and she know isn’t much like the one the rest of the world knows. Except for things like, going on national TV to talk about his anxiety, which, gotta give up props for that, and doing charity work. I still don’t know how he found out about Peter, but, hey, kid got himself a paid internship, and I got a gig I like with steady hours and all the trimmings, so, not gonna complain—” A burst of laughter from down the hallway interrupted her. “You may never get your Avenger back if those two get him hooked on Legos! Watch your step, those little blocks are a bitch when they get underfoot.”

Peter’s tiny bedroom (man, they needed a bigger place. I wondered how May would feel about moving to the tower) was packed with bodies. Peter was hovering on a top bunk, Ned sat on the lower one, and Bucky was sprawled on the floor gleefully investigating the Legos. “These are killer-diller,” he declared. “They’d be great practice for my hand, since the fine motor still gets kinda wonky. I bet Steve’d get a kick out of ‘em too. Might make him relax a little bit!” He climbed to his feet, thanking the boys for sharing. “Let’s take a powder, doll. Gardenin’ may have to wait till tomorrow. I’m gonna hafta hop a ride on the internet and get JARVIS to help me order a coupla boxes of these lil’ suckers, still can’t believe FAO Schwarz shut down…” he grumbled. 

“Thank you both again for bringing my bag,” May said as we started for the door.

“No problem ma’am,” Bucky grinned. “I hadn’t been in Queens in…dunno how long, it sure has changed, but it was nice to have a reason to come up.”

“Likewise,” I added. “I can’t beat that, but, gosh, I may not have been up this way since the last Stark Expo, and that’s been several years.”

“My mom and dad took me,” Peter chimed in, bouncing alongside us. “When the robot drones got loose and started shooting, I thought I was going to be a hero and stop them, I guess. Mr. Stark himself shot one down and got me out, well, gave me to a lady who took me to my parents. I’m not sure how much they ever believed about that, even though she told them.”

I stopped as a memory scratched at the back door of my brain asking to be let in. “You had an Iron Man mask? And a gauntlet?”

“Ye-eah,” Peter said slowly. 

“Tony told you you did a good job.”

By now, the kid’s eyes had taken up most of his face. “Yeah.” 

I grinned. “Then I carried you back to your folks.”

The space went dead silent, until Ned breathed, “Wow. It’s like fate, dude.” 

It was funny, and yet, maybe it was more true than any of us knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events in our verse, or in canon MCU, will have little if any effect on this verse, just so you know. Translated, this is a safe space for those whose hearts are hurting over the Spider-mess.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May learns the truth about Peter, and is drawn into the Avengers' inner circle (and maybe particularly close to one someone in particular). Bucky is feeling much better about touching, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes from last chapter that I forgot to post, lol. 
> 
> History of the books Bucky mentions reading: https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Forest-Ranger-Fiction.pdf
> 
> The garden the Brooklyn boys adopt was inspired by: https://www.grownyc.org/openspace/gardens/bk/whole-neighborhood-garden
> 
> Here's a long chapter, because I'm going to be out of pocket for several days--next update will probably be next Tueday.
> 
> WARNING, SMUT INCOMING! :)

May seemed to settle into the wacky daily whirl of the tower a little more readily after that. She politely but firmly refused the offer of an apartment there, and Bucky used that as an excuse to carry the borough rivalry to her. Another, more serious shift happened the day Happy raced into her office in the SI clinic suite in a panic over a new HR staffer setting off his Geiger counter. No, I did not ask why Happy had a Geiger counter, or why he was using it on new hires.

May took the situation in hand with a downright Pottsian degree of composure. She calmed Happy down, accompanied him to the HR office (which he had cordoned off), and had him scan the shaken young middle-management type. Then she asked the guy, and Happy, a few questions, then dug through the box of stuff the employee had brought to go on his new desk, and located the culprit…a paperweight with a chunk of meteorite embedded in it. “How’d you know?” I marveled to her later.

She shrugged. “We had a buncha dockworkers brought into the ER one time after an accident. One scanned with elevated levels of radiation, and the administrator was about to quarantine the whole place and call in the Feds. I found out he’d been working in South America on a Brazil nut plantation. They carry a lot of radium, enough to set most sensors off. After that I made a point of learning a little about natural sources of radiation. Meteorites are one. Bananas too.” May cocked her head in thought. “Maybe I oughta get a counter for the apartment. Who knows what kind of contamination Peter might be bringing in from school, or even from here, no offense.” 

“None taken,” I returned, but what I was really wondering was what she would do when she found out the biggest radiation source in her home was probably her bitten-by-a-radioactive-spider nephew.

We all found out the answer to that question, not too much later. The news that May knew Peter and Spider-Man were one and the same came in the form of a slightly frantic text from Happy one morning. ::CODE RED CODE RED ACTIVATE UNMASKED PROTOCOL::

I sighed. ::Happy have you always been such a drama queen or did you pick it up from Tony?::

He ignored my snark. In fact I got no reply at all. I’d been dueling via email all day with a production studio that wanted to buy the rights to make an Avengers animated TV show (let’s just say their take on the fictional heroes needed some work). Overdue for a break, and hoping I could help, I asked JARVIS where Happy was, and he directed me to Pepper’s office where May seemed torn between raging and crying. 

Happy was flustered, his hands flailing in the air as if he didn’t know whether to block a swing or give her a hug. Pepper was, as ever, doing her best to get the situation under control. “May, I know this can’t be easy. He was so afraid you might be in danger if it got out. Tony’s talked to Peter, I think half the Avengers have, but they felt they had to leave the decision of when and how to share this to him. I think—he didn’t want you to worry, but he knew he had to tell you, and sooner rather than later.”

May let out a huff, partly angry-sounding and partly exhausted. “It’s not even that, I can’t blame you, you were caught in a bind. But he’s my boy, my responsibility, and…Ben’s gone, Peter needs more role models, he needs a male role model, and if he’s got the Avengers, how the fuck does he need me? I’m no hero!”

Pepper was aghast. “May! Of course he needs you. You’re his family! You’re his hero. You should hear how he talks about you. He needs you more than anyone else. Nobody would dream of ever trying to—to replace you, to take him from you!”

“Everybody likes him,” Happy half-muttered, “but everybody also likes being able to send him back home.” I kicked his shin, hoping it would go unnoticed. It didn’t. Pepper glared at me, and I backed off; no need for me to get involved. “What, it’s true.” May laughed a little, then Happy surprised me by continuing, “Really, though, I, uh, you know we were talking the other day and I told you I boxed? So, when I was a kid, that meant I had a lot of, of mentors, I guess you’d say, at the neighborhood gym, and in Golden Gloves and all that. They helped me out a ton, growing up, but they weren’t any kind of replacement for my parents. I’m, well, I’m not so good with kids—you should’ve seen me when I was a substitute PE teacher, back in the day, I was a walking disaster. But like I say, I don’t have to tell ya, Pete’s one of the good ones, and the whole team likes him loads. He looks up to you so much, the way you work so hard, the way you hung in there after his uncle died, and he doesn’t want to make things harder on you. That’s a lot of why he didn’t tell you about the spider-stuff, I think.”

It was just as surprising to me that his words seemed to settle May as even Pepper’s had not. “So the internship,” May said after a minute, “was it real? Or just a way for the Avengers to keep an eye on a baby hero?”

“You forget, I’m the one who runs this company,” Pepper returned with a touch of tartness to her tone. “SI doesn’t play hero games. The internship was and is for real. Once Tony talked to Peter and saw how sharp he is, he would have offered it to him no matter what—a mind like your nephew's needs all the nurturing it can get. It is good to have him here though; he can train with Avengers when they’re here, and learn from them.”

I finally dared offer some input. “May, from the perspective of somebody who works closely with the team, I know for a fact that Tony has flatly forbidden Peter from trying to sneak off on Avengers missions. They’re encouraging him to keep doing his neighborhood thing and help him learn more about his abilities, to make him safer and more capable in the long run, because his skills aren’t going to vanish.”

“And before you ask,” Pepper added, “yes, we desperately needed you here, you are an answer to prayer, and please don’t quit. I did not hire you because of Peter. Although, I admit, it did occur to me that once you knew he was Spider-Man, you might feel better being within arms’ reach, figuratively speaking.”

May screwed her mouth around for a moment as though in thought. “Never thought of Tony Stark as the protective-dad type,” she allowed.

“Neither did I,” Pepper grinned. “I think maybe he’s practicing for when we have our own kids.”

“Tony even made up a certificate, to make the internship all official." Happy pulled out his phone. “He had me take a picture of them, for, I dunno, company newsletter, or website or something?” He tapped and grumbled, and then held the phone out. Sure enough, there on the tiny screen was a photo of Tony and Peter, side by side, grinning, holding a thoroughly legit-looking framed document.

Pepper came over to join us looking at it. “Happy…they’re holding the certificate upside down.”

A horrified look crossed Happy’s face, but May just chuckled and patted his arm. “That’s my Petey. Can you print me off a copy?”

At her confident beam, Happy frankly blushed, and I was silently intrigued. “Sure,” he mumbled. “I mean, I’ll get Tony to, I guess. I’m not so good with the techie stuff. Hey JARVIS, where’s the boss at?”

“Sir left the building approximately eighty minutes ago, accompanying Captain Rogers to the Resilience Consultation Center.” 

The name rang a bell but I couldn’t place it. Pepper, on the other hand, did so instantly and with evident surprise. “Are you sure Tony was going there, J?” Our AI confirmed, and Pepper’s puzzled frown deepened. Before I could ask, she said, “That’s the outpatient mental health clinic on Staten Island, the one the neighborhood started after the Chitauri attack. Tony sponsors it but he’s never been there because…well, you know…”

“My understanding, Miss Potts,” JARVIS said, “was that after consulting with his therapist, Sir hoped Captain Rogers’ presence might help forestall any breakthrough anxiety attacks he might otherwise suffer. I am monitoring his status via his Iron Man gauntlet watch interfacing with my app on his StarkPhone.”

“Of course you are.” Pepper’s frown smoothed out into a fond little smile. “Thank you, JARVIS.”

Naturally, we then had to explain some things to May, like JARVIS, who rarely announced his presence on SI premises. By the time she left, she had reaffirmed her offer to stand as the Avengers’ unofficial team medic, I promised to introduce her around for real (the team had been actively avoiding much interaction for fear of letting something slip) and Pepper pledged to call her the next time we were having a gals’ get-together on the roof.

Handling Spider-Man’s public face became exponentially easier for me without having to worry about keeping secrets from his only kin. That gave me a little extra time for things like my sword lessons from Bucky. Once I felt relatively comfortable with an actual blade, he started to expand my repertoire until I could use variations of the moves with a broom or a microphone stand on a moment’s notice. It married my old learning with the new, and made me feel much more confident when I was out alone.

Bucky became surer of himself too, over time, and began to get out on his own. Dr. Rausch suggested he try coming to his appointments at her office instead of her always making house calls (all right, tower calls), and when he was secure in doing that, the next thing I knew, he was off many days, hopping trains and coming back with all manner of small gifts for everyone he knew.

One afternoon a rustle at my office door alerted me to the presence of a weary-looking but smirking long-haired super soldier leaning against the jamb. One hand held up a plastic bag, the other held a slightly rumpled bouquet of assorted flowers. “Straight outta the garden. The kids helped me pick ‘em,” he grinned when I squealed and pounced. The bag contained handfuls of tiny new potatoes with sweet-smelling dirt still sticking to them. Delighted, I smacked a kiss on his smirk, then hauled him down the hallway and put him to work washing the potatoes clean, while I found a vase for the flowers. “This is nice,” he said, watching me dice the potatoes, season them with a couple of chops and some green beans, and toss the whole shebang in the oven. “It’s…”

“Domestic?” I teased. “Tame? Unexciting?”

“Nice,” he insisted, a hint of frustration creeping into his tone now as if he couldn’t find the exact word he wanted. 

He tugged at his long hair in thought. I perched on the edge of the table and slapped his hand. “Stop that before you start to shed in my kitchen. I’ll make you put a hairnet on, see if I don't.”

He glared. “Homey,” he said suddenly. “Comfortable. Satisfying. Like, it’s…where I’m s’posed to be. Like you’re where I’m supposed to be.” The words didn’t register right away. Once they did, I was still searching for something to say in response when the effort was rendered moot by Bucky’s mouth claiming mine. “I don’t wanna be anyplace else,” he whispered against my lips.

“I don’t want you to be,” I managed.

Supper almost burned while we proceeded to make out, until I came up for air long enough to ask JARVIS to turn off the oven. Mindful of our earlier conversations about privacy, I also asked the AI to make himself scarce for a while, because Bucky was getting a little handsy. “That thing about touching,” I kidded gently as two big hands slid inside my blouse, unbuttoning it and unhooking my front-loading bra, “seems better.”

“Remember the other day when we went to the market?” he said with an almost bashful half-grin. “I realized then, if I didn’t bruise ripe fruit, I sure wasn’t gonna bruise you.” I hummed in agreement and watched his fingers, warm flesh and cool sheathed metal, explore my breasts with exquisite care. “Wanna see something really nifty?”

I looked up into his sea-eyes. “I see something really ‘nifty’. Right in front of me.”

“Dork. Shoulda said ‘feel’.” His right hand slipped up the back of my neck and into my hair, cupping the base of my skull, while his left caught my right nipple in a light pincer grip. I started to tip my head, thrilled to see his hands on me, but the fingertips against my scalp tightened just a bit and his voice dropped. “Don’t look down. I wanna see your face when…” His tongue flicked out and licked his lips, his gaze locking mine in place.

The next moment there was a tiny click, faint even in the quiet of the kitchen, followed by a soft buzz, and I nearly levitated off the table where I sat. A small startled yelp burst from me when the fingers that encircled my nipple began to vibrate. “Bucky!” I gulped. “What the…”

His grin was thoroughly evil. “Pretty nice, huh? Tony fixed me up. Think he figured I needed to please myself, sometimes. Didn’t tell him I was gonna be pleasin’ myself this way.” His mouth came down on mine, swallowing the little noises I made as he teased and tweaked and sent ripples of sensation through my body.

“Oh…ah…Lord have mercy…”

Bucky’s grin widened. “Aw, I gotcha down to that, huh, Scarlett? Sure do like it when you get all Southern.” He pressed against me, and those maddening digits trailed across my chest to latch onto my other nipple. My hands clenched on the table edge, and I barely realized I was grinding against his thigh. “You said you were okay without this—are you okay with it, now?”

“Absolutely,” I panted, “but what about you?”

I reached for his belt, but he tsk’ed and stepped away. I was half amused at myself and half embarrassed by the near-whine of frustration that escaped my throat when he broke contact. “I’m fine, doll. I—I ain’t ready to round the bases, just yet. Just, lemme make ya feel good, right now, an’ you can return the favor when I feel safe with myself, okay?”

The few brain cells I still had online agreed. “We’ll make that happen. When you want it, darlin’.”

A softness came into his smile. “I’m gonna want it. I know I am. You’re so pretty like this, all flushed and wantin’…I’m gonna need to see this a lot more.” His powerful natural arm wound around my waist and lifted me. With a squeak, I threw my arms around his neck and held on, thinking he was about to carry me to the bedroom. Instead, he stroked my cheek with his sinfully magic fingers, then trailed them down my side and across my belly. When the metal hand dipped into my pants, he lowered me until my weight was barely resting on the table, his vibrating touch almost, almost close enough. “You wanna go for a ride, right here, doll?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing this chapter, I learned that the radiation content of bananas is so well known that they are even used as a baseline measurement! Since I love useless bits of info, I thought I would share. lol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose 
> 
> And in case veteran readers of Tony's comic arcs were wondering, yes, the name of the mental health clinic in this chapter is a call out to one of the 616 verse’s many iterations of Stark Industries, Stark Resilient. <3
> 
> Bucky calling Chrissy 'Scarlett' is of course a reference to Scarlett O'Hara of _Gone With the Wind_ fame, still one of the most iconic Southern fictional characters, and definitely THE best-known Southern gal in Bucky's day.
> 
> Speaking of verses...readers may recall I mentioned a while back that I was toying with the idea of a short where a visitor from another verse _(coughMCU!Tony?cough)_ lands here. It would take place somewhere in the next chapter, I think, and I hope to write it and post it soon as a side piece, tentatively titled Deuce.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey reacts to Chrissy's new boyfriend, and a very surprising visitor drops into the tower. Literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry so long resuming forward motion on this unit! Dragon Con was far too distracting for any writing to get done; plus I got several commissions for crafts. As it happened, the enforced time away from the keyboard was a good thing, because stuff sort of percolated in the back of my head, and I realized the 'side story' I alluded to, the one about a visitor from another verse, was not a side story at all, but a very needed element within the main plotline to set up future events! So here ya go.

The blossoming of Bucky’s and my sexual relationship coincided with the further advancement of his comfort level in other areas. Fresh from discovering his ability to fare forth on his own around town, he began actively seeking out, not just new experiences, but the few places he recalled from his first life. (His recall, logically enough, was best for experiences since his escape from HYDRA, the things he had been noting down.) On one memorable occasion, I went with him and Steve to Coney Island, where they swapped tales of sideshows and rigged carnival games and how Bucky had coaxed little Stevie onto the huge roller coaster (and gotten payback when Steve threw up on him).

Bucky swore, though, that his favorite discovery was of his power to take me apart in bed. Or on the sofa. Or in the back of a subway car. Or…you get the idea. Evil, I told him, that was what he was, was evil. He admitted to being uncomfortable with the thought of his enhanced strength accidentally hurting me, and confessed, one night while curled up in bed, that another of his worries about going all the way with me was not knowing whether he could pass along the traits the bastardized super-soldier serum had conferred on him. I assured him I had a birth control implant, so that was one thing he emphatically did not have to worry about, and as for full-on sex, he was keeping me quite happy without that. (And tired, but I wasn’t going to burden him with that thought.)

“Stevie told me one time, Dr. Erskine, the fella who chose him for Project Rebirth, said the serum amped up everything inside, so good became great, but bad became worse. In his case, Steve was already ornery, it just made him unbearable.” I giggled and Bucky chuckled. “Me, I was a sniper. I hadda be patient, and precise, and the juice just, what’d they say, turned it up to eleven? So, when I feel like I can trust myself—an’ I know you trust me, doll, that ain’t my point—I got to trust myself, an’ I can be patient with that, if you can be patient with me. Till then…” 

He left the sentence dangling, but his wicked leer said it all. “You’ll use that precision to drive me up the damn wall,” I groaned happily.

Aside from not getting as much sleep as I had grown accustomed to getting, life moved on quite well. I fended off several calls about booking TV interviews with Bucky, mostly because he wasn’t comfortable with being filmed, and was still nervous about the Winter Soldier popping out if he felt pressured. A traditional print piece fit him more, but then again, Steve had introduced him to the wonders of the internet, and he was already flirting on Twitter and gathering a surprising young following. Well, maybe it wasn’t so surprising, considering how he had hit it off with Peter and Ned.

When some jerk tried to troll Bucky, and Jacob from Buzzfeed came to his defense, I was impressed, and got an idea. What we set up was the best of both worlds: an old-school sit-down interview, with Steve there for added moral support, that was transcribed and posted online. It was audio recorded too, just in case, and by the end, Bucky felt enough at ease to agree to let it be released as a podcast. Jacob thrilled at his scoop, and Bucky gained scores of young female fans. Steve thought it was hilarious and trolled his pal face to face daily. Bucky threatened him with assorted types of bodily harm, not one of which was serious.

I continued to wrangle the Avengers’ public images, working with them on the widest imaginable array of appearances, charitable endeavors, and marketing proposals. Pepper got a bit of inadvertent extra fame when paparazzi photographed her buying one of every color of the Iron Man collection of nail polish that OPI had negotiated. (Clint trained Tony in foot massages and pedicures, and Pepper was well pleased.) Actually, the toughest challenge I ran into during that time period was, believe it or not, a Shanghai toy company trying to drive an unnaturally hard bargain for a line of Avengers-themed rubber ducks. 

Let me take that back. The rubber duck people were the second toughest thing I had to deal with. The toughest was the way my stomach tied itself in knots the day Bucky was late coming back from a therapist appointment, and strolled onto the common floor carrying two Starbucks and accompanied by Rhodey. With a kiss on the cheek he handed me one cup; then Rhodey kissed my other cheek, and I cannot tell a lie, for a split-second my mind veered so far off the road and into the ditch…

By the time I hauled my ass out of the metaphorical gutter, Rhodey was waving goodbye and getting back on the elevator. As the doors closed I heard him asking JARVIS where Tony was. “Rhodes is a great guy,” Bucky commented, licking a mocha-foam mustache off his upper lip. “Gives a good shovel talk, too.”

My mouth was open to make a pleasant comment of agreement until the last part made it snap shut like a robbed mousetrap. “Shovel talk,” I repeated.

“Mm-hm. You never told me you two dated.”

“It…didn’t particularly seem relevant.”

“He assured me he didn’t intend to meddle, but he’d blast me into splinters if I hurt you.” He gave an offhanded half-shrug. “Can’t say he’s wrong, either. I ain’t safe for you to be around.”

“The world ain’t safe either,” I pointed out. “Tony and Pepper are more family to me than my own blood kin, and ain’t either one of them safe.”

One dark eyebrow rose. “You makin’ fun of me, doll? Or goin’ all Southern because you’re pissed? Or tryin’ to distract me?”

“Definitely not the first one. Parts of the other two, yeah.” I set my coffee down and took his face in my hands. “Part of why Rhodey and I didn’t work out was that he kept wanting to protect me from things he didn’t need to worry about. I’m a grown-ass woman, Bucky, and I can judge for myself when trouble gets deep enough that I need help digging out. You’ve always given me that respect; please don’t stop now.”

I held his eyes with mine for a very long moment. “I won’t,” he finally promised quietly. “You’re strong, an’ I love that about ya. I’d never want ya to be anything other than what you are. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be teachin’ ya swordplay, now would I?” We kissed, and I did not make a big deal of the four-letter word he had used.

The sword practice continued, observed, when he was at the tower, by a wide-eyed Peter. He loved my watch gauntlet too, more than I did actually, since it continued to be cranky, and work for everybody except me. Tony swore and tweaked and refused to give up on it. After another service visit, I went down to his dungeon to collect it. 

Since Tony was out, I snuck a surprise down for him. When Ultron rampaged through the tower, the Iron Man I had cross-stitched for Tony’s birthday got slightly damaged. I was more than willing to break the pattern and floss out and make him a replacement, but he pouted, and wanted the OG back, as he said. (He’d been hanging out with Peter way too much; he was trying to get all hip with the youth.) The damage was minimal, really, so I mended it and got it reframed. That day, I had picked it up from the framer, and brought it back to hang in its usual place over Tony’s primary work area. Secretly, my heart swelled knowing he wanted it there.

With the workshop vacant, I decided I’d hole up down there for a while, escape the Shanghai rubber duck fracas, and practice with the repulsor. I went to the small testing range Tony had built into the far wall, and asked JARVIS to kick up one of my personal playlists. Tony laughed when I danced around his work space to his classic rock, but I like all kinds of music (almost; opera has never been my jam). On this day I wanted something bouncy, so I requested some 80s punk and new wave. 

The gauntlet consented to work, and I was tuned in, focusing and firing at the virtual targets with DUM-E as an appreciative audience, when a noise like a lightning strike snapped through the space. _Thor’s back?_ I thought hopefully for a beat, until the whole workshop rattled. The concrete floor beneath my feet held firm, so the tower didn’t seem to be at risk or under attack; but a sizzle scorched the air, followed by a gust of air that felt briefly like the suction of a giant vacuum cleaner. The scuffle was punctuated by a thump with the distinct sound of a body hitting ground, in the main shop area near Tony’s bench.

DUM-E bleeped and rolled into the farthest corner. For an instant, I froze. Ducking and hiding wasn’t an option—if a hostile had just somehow teleported in through the shields Strange had put on the tower, I wasn’t about to let it loose on the world without a fight. The scuffle and grunt that came from that direction sounded more awkward than intimidating, but jumping to conclusions was unsafe under the best of circumstances. As quietly and quickly as I could, I headed that way, using Tony’s clutter as cover to see without being immediately seen.

A male figure was on the floor, looking around and then starting to climb to his feet. It was Tony—but it wasn’t Tony. The profile was the same, the eyes and beard, but his shoulders were rounded, his hair greying. He was dressed in faded jeans and a worn Motley Crue t-shirt, definitely not what Tony had left that morning wearing. One hand grabbed the edge of the workbench and he hauled himself up with another grunt to stand, looking around with a frown. I drew my gauntleted hand back but kept it up and ready to fire. The stranger’s eyes were as sharp as Tony’s, though. “Okay, whoever that is lurking over there, I see the light glinting off whatever you’re holding. C’mon out, and we’ll talk this over. And who’s playing the Ramones in my workshop?”

He sounded like Tony too, right down to the scandalized tone. “I’m playing the Ramones, and it’s not your workshop,” I shot back and stepped into the clear, palm out and ready. “JARVIS, lock down and scan intruder, please.”

“At once, Miss Everhart.”

The stranger’s expression completely changed, from the cool cocky mask I’d seen Tony don for years, to open shock. “JARVIS?” His voice cracked, just a little; his head jerked upward, and one hand flew to his open mouth, his eyes wide. “J…is that you, buddy?”

I had never heard JARVIS hesitate to answer a question. “That…is my designation,” he finally replied.

The big dark eyes narrowing in on me, the stranger flung out one arm in a gesture I’d seen Tony made a thousand time—calling a suit, or in this case a loose gauntlet lying on a countertop across the shop. It didn’t budge. What did budge was the door, as it swooshed open and Bucky came tearing in. “JARVIS,” I groaned. “I thought I said ‘lockdown’!”

“After assessing the situation, I determined you might be in need of assistance,” JARVIS returned, unrepentant.

“And ‘xactly what the hell is the situation, J?” Bucky growled and skidded to a halt beside me. 

“Yeah,” I said. “Scan results?”

“The individual is substantially similar to Sir, but not identical.”

I started to ask how substantial _substantially_ was, but was cut short when the stranger gasped, “Barnes,” and stumbled backward a step or two. He clutched both hands over his chest (I processed no blue light, so no arc reactor there), tripped over Tony’s battered old rolling stool, and crumpled to the concrete with a panicky wheeze I knew all too well. With a snap, I closed my gauntlet and moved toward him. 

“Hold it right there, Chris!” Bucky ordered. “He might—”

“He’s not gonna do anything right now, and I’m not gonna stand here and watch him have an anxiety attack. It’ll be okay. He’s Tony, or, well, _a_ Tony, I think.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Bucky kept pace as I knelt beside the breathless man.

“I’ll explain in a minute—Hey buddy, it’s gonna be okay. Nobody’s gonna hurt you if you don’t mean us any harm. Can I touch you? No weapons here, see? You’re safe—” His arms were wrapped tightly around his torso, and his eyes screwed shut. At my words, though, they popped open, wild and frantic. His work-booted feet scrabbled against the floor as he tried to scoot away on his backside. “Bucky, you’re scaring him for some reason. Back off a minute—go get him some water, maybe?” My lover had a lovely smirk, but a glare that could scare most anybody, except me. “Go on, shoo.”

He shooed, while I tried to calm our visitor. I didn’t have a lot of luck at first; I rapidly discovered he didn’t seem to have any concept of the skills against panic that Tony did, so I had to talk him through the breathing exercises from scratch. His eyes alternated between wide-open and squeezed-shut. If the horrible theory that had popped into my head was right, these surroundings were probably just unfamiliar enough to be unnerving, but he seemed on edge as if dropped here from a war zone.

Behind me, Bucky’s feet shuffled. He couldn’t even get close enough to hand me the glass of water he held before the stranger let out a small whine of fear and tightened his hug on his shaking body. Bucky blanched, as distressed by the evident terror as I was, and backed away. “Hang on, I got an idea,” he said quietly and stepped away while I kept trying to reassure my unexpected patient. A few moments later, familiar beeps and bloops sounded, and DUM-E approached clutching the cup in his claw.

“Ohhh, this ought to be good,” I pretended to gripe.

Surprisingly, the man beside me let out an unsteady chuckle. “Oh, I don’t know, he does okay with smoothies. Well, with carrying them. Not so much with making them, unless you like to drink motor oil. C’mere, you waste of wattage, bring me that and try not to give me a shower with it, huh?”

“At least that’s one thing that stayed the same between here and—wherever you’re from,” I noted, watching the stranger ease his self-embrace and support his unsteady left arm before reaching for the drink with a hint of a soft smile for our favorite mechanical disaster child.

“Yeah, doll, you, um, were gonna explain that?” Bucky reminded me under his breath, standing off to one side and out of our visitor’s line of sight. 

“I know Steve's told you about the multiverse shenanigans the team’s had to deal with.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed for a moment in thought, then he brightened. “The giant kangaroo.”

“That was one,” I nodded, speaking softly too, so as not to alert the man now petting and playfully insulting DUM-E. “Never had a person come through before, but that’s one ‘never’ that may just have met its end. That’s what I meant. I think he’s Tony, but from another universe. A universe where apparently he and his Bucky are not friends.”

“Damn.” Bucky looked troubled. “Tony ain’t gonna take kindly to that.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The visitor meets some more Avengers, and has a particularly bad reaction to one.

Bucky stayed out of sight but close at hand as I returned my attention to the visitor, who was listening intently. So much for thinking DUM-E would distract him; he _was_ Tony, after all. “Multiverse,” he said. “That’s…a theory, but apparently it’s a thing, here?”

“It’s a thing,” I affirmed. “How’d you get here, if it’s just a theory in your world?”

He shrugged. “Definitely wasn’t working on anything that would have led to this. So, who knows?” After a glance around, he went on, “Your Tony’s workshop, obviously. Weird, though. Cross-stitch? Not my aesthetic. Tower?” I nodded. “Who are you then and what’re you doing in here, and with a gauntlet?” He fixed a brief but pointed glare on my wrist, which meant he had noticed, or built himself, a convertible derringer too. “And what’s…he…doing here?” His eyes flicked toward Bucky, who, for a legendary assassin, wasn’t doing a great job of hiding. “Your Tony know he’s here?”

“Of course! I don’t know what’s happened between you two in your world, but—”

“Let’s just say he sure as hell doesn’t have workshop privileges. In fact, he doesn’t have in-the-same-country-as-me privileges. If Rogers had a way to call interplanetary Uber and get him off-world, he would.” He drained the water. “I could use something stronger.”

“Right now, you need alcohol like a hog needs hip pockets,” I retorted. “Let’s keep you unencumbered till Tony gets back. Then y’all can get your science on and get you back to your universe.”

He blinked. “Why is Loretta Lynn ordering me around?” he asked DUM-E dramatically.

“You’re lucky Miss Loretta is my aunt and uncle’s neighbor, so I consider that a compliment.” I smiled when I said it, though, because another thing was the same between these two universes inexplicably entangled: I could see what he was doing, using snark and sarcasm and sharp words just as our Tony did, to build a protective armor. “And I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I? Sorry. I’m Christine, the Avengers’ PR manager.”

“Huh. Wish we’d had one of those.” Damn, it was a full-time-plus gig for me, how could a team survive without someone to handle it? Before I could reply, he frowned. “You look familiar…Whoa, wait, JARVIS called you Everhart? The reporter? How’d a catty bitch like you land this gig—”

“Watch it, buster,” Bucky snarled and moved closer, only to halt when the other man flinched and went rigid. “Tony,” Bucky’s voice dropped again. “What the fuck did I do to you?”

“And the other me is a catty bitch?” I added. “Damn, that is disappointing. I’m guessing you and she don’t get along either. Wow. Pretty sure my life would suck if Tony and Pepper weren’t my friends.”

“Pepper’s your friend?” The other Tony cocked his head with a look of frank amazement. “I may be hallucinating, but I’ve got to hear this story before I wake up.”

Bucky crouched beside me, wound up enough to spring into action at an instant’s notice, but to all outward appearances loose-limbed and relaxed. It was a smart move, though, to put him at the guest’s eye level rather than towering over. DUM-E turned to him with an eager bleep. “Yeah, you want all the pets, you greedy box a’bolts,” he scolded, but still gave all the pets. The other Tony’s eyes bulged, and then he went almost limp. It was as if seeing that the bot liked Bucky had helped calm his fear.

“We’ll swap stories once we get a group together, so you don’t have to repeat yourself,” I went on. “We were gonna have a crowd tonight anyway. I finally mastered Wanda’s Sokovian lamb stew and everybody was coming in to critique.”

“Critique your cooking? They can kiss my ass,” Bucky snorted, but the other Tony went pale. 

“Wanda…Maximoff? She’s here too?”

“Her and her bro both,” Bucky confirmed.

“Pietro’s alive?” Our visitor looked surprised. If Pietro had died in Novigrad, as he came close to doing, it likely would have been harder to bring Wanda into the team fully or show her how HYDRA had steered the twins wrong. That could explain at least the anxiety at the mention of Wanda’s name, but it was going to make her sad to think an alt-Wanda had never asked Tony’s forgiveness or become his friend.

“I’ll text everybody and reschedule,” I told the man. “It sounds like the dynamics of your world are way different from ours, and we don’t want to throw you into a situation that scares you.”

“Scared?” he scoffed. “I’m Tony fucking Stark. I’m Iron Man.” I gave him The Look, and while it wasn’t nearly as good as Pepper’s, I was gratified to note it worked on him as well as our Tony. 

“Excuse me,” JARVIS cut in, “but I have advised Sir of the current state of affairs, and he is currently returning from Boston via his suit at all speed. Miss Potts and Captain Rogers are following via automobile.”

“He left Pepper with—with _Rogers_?” the other Tony demanded, his voice unsteady again.

“Well, yeah, why…wouldn’t…” I trailed off at the hint of a tremor in his face. “Steve too?” I looked over at Bucky, whose expression grew even sadder. _Shit gets much deeper_ , I thought, _we’re gonna need hip waders._

“Rogers won, didn’t he?” the stranger said suddenly. “The Accords. Sokovia. You have that here? The only way Terminator is here—” he glared at Bucky—”and Captain Golden Boy is running around free and inviting himself on trips with your Stark and _Pep_ —” A tiny but visible shudder jerked his shoulders. “Rogers must’ve turned on all that upright charisma and flashed those perfect white teeth, and somehow, persuaded the UN to scuttle the Accords, or water ‘em down like cheap coffee. I’m right, aren’t I?”

By now, I was thoroughly baffled. "Uh, no. The Accords were a pain, yeah, and could’ve been a lot worse if the team hadn’t been working on counterproposals months ago. The Avengers signed on to them as a work in progress, and Tony’s been doing most of the fine-tuning since then, because, hell, I don’t have to tell _you_ why. But the idea that Steve wouldn’t sign on, or would try to make the freaking UN go away—” I shook my head. “Tony and Pepper had a presentation to give at MIT. They took Steve because, as Tony says, ‘hey, Captain America’. Plus, Steve and Pep wanted to raid a pen store up there, and Tony wanted to take them to this incredible diner he and Rhodey got thrown out of in their college days, if they’ll let him back in.”

The wheels turning in the man’s head were almost audible. “No Civil War, then…”

Before I could ask what US history had to do with anything, JARVIS cut in, “Sir has arrived and is en route down from the landing pad.” Relief swept over me; surely Tony could handle his own doppleganger better than anyone else. Bucky took my hand in his—I thought I hid my tension well, but those ice-blue sniper’s eyes didn’t miss a thing.

Seconds later, the door whooshed. “Chrissy!” Tony yelled. “Hey, cornbread!”

“Over here!” I called and waved my free arm. Tony clanked over in full Iron Man glory, hands up and ready to engage. “At ease, hot rod,” I sighed. “Take your shoes off and sit a spell. We got company.”

The faceplate slid up to reveal Tony’s mouth hanging open. “Damn,” he managed. “Am I gonna age that rough? You gotta be old enough to draw Social Security.”

The newcomer glared. “Forty-six, thanks for nothing, smartass.” 

JARVIS helpfully added, “Sir, while your other self reports his chronological age to be the same as your own, physiologically his body scans as 5.15 years older, possibly due to increased wear and tear. I note recent chest scarring and reconstructive sternum surgery.”

“Speaking of thanks for nothing, I’d forgotten what a traitor you could be, J.” The other Tony turned his glare toward the ceiling, but it softened in an oddly melancholy way. _Something happened to JARVIS too, in his world_ , I surmised.

Tony seemed to catch that suggestion of grief too. Of course he did, who would know his tells better than him? “You just ditch the arc reactor?” he asked.

His twin shook his head. “Been a few years. Had the surgery after—”

“The Mandarin,” Tony finished. “And after you got Pepper sorted out, right?”

There went that sad face again. I added Pepper to the rapidly lengthening mental list of triggering names. “Yeah,” he replied simply.

The downcast eyes didn’t escape Tony either. “Well, if you fucked up and lost your Potts later, don’t think you’re gonna hit on mine while you’re here. You’ll end up sleeping across the river in Barton’s flophouse. I’ve worked too damn hard to convince her I’m worth keeping.”

“Can confirm.” I got a grip on the suit’s hip and used it to help me to my feet.

Tony threw me a snarky grin. “She sass you like this, Bumble?” he asked Bucky who was standing up too.

“All the damn time, Shellhead,” Bucky returned with a genial bump of his metal shoulder against Tony’s armored one. 

The stranger looked about ready to faint; I guessed he hadn’t believed what we said about Bucky and Tony’s friendship. Tony reached down toward him. “C’mon, Chrissy’ll feed you and you can meet the in crowd. Should be a treat to hear about your place, seeing as how we’ve never had a multiverse visitor who could actually, you know, talk to us.”

“Tony, maybe we ought to postpone team dinner,” I got in. “Our new friend here hasn’t had time to tell us much but we gather his verse is different in a _lot_ of—”

The workshop door flew open again and Steve stormed in, with shield in hand, no less. Bucky moved to slow his buddy’s roll, but it was too late. The stranger, halfway to standing up, gasped and fell back to the floor, shaking and clutching his chest again. I dropped beside him while above us Tony sputtered and Bucky tried to explain. This did not look like another panic attack; the man’s left arm shook, he clawed at his shirt collar and gasped, with shock and fear writ large across his features. I caught the limp left arm and felt for his pulse. “Shit,” I gulped, “it’s so fast, and irregular—I think he’s having a heart attack, for real.”

“May’s here!” Bucky said. “I was just talkin’ to her down in her office.”

“Great.” Tony bent and scooped his double up; in the suit it was an easy lift, and the guy looked to weigh less than him anyhow. “J, have her meet us in the med unit.”

We piled onto the Hulk-elevator, and while it shot upward Bucky and I caught Steve and Tony up as quickly as we could. Pepper had dropped Steve at the private team entrance in the tower garage while she parked, and JARVIS promised to update and direct her. We reached the sixty-second floor just as the elevator up from SI opened. May bustled out and took in the situation, wide-eyed at the sight of Tony holding an identical form. “So this is my life now, huh?” she said dryly.

The other Tony’s eyes grew even bigger, and he turned toward the sound of May’s voice. “Aunt Hottie?”

While Tony carried his twin into an exam bay, we brought her up to speed. Halfway through, Pepper arrived and we finished up before May headed in to run tests. “Don’t get any bright ideas, Potts,” Tony warned when he emerged to find us all crowded around the observation window. “No threesomes. He’s old as dirt anyway.”

“He is not,” she returned, her gaze focused on May’s quick, sure movements around her patient. “He just looks tired. And sick. And _sad_.”

While Tony shucked the suit and we waited for word, I messaged everybody about the change in plans, wishing the Avengers had a group chat to save time. May came to the door about the time I finished. “Come on in, his chest muscles were spasming so I gave him something to help relax them. There’s no frank coronary disease that I can see from the EKG, but his left ventricle is hypofunctional, transiently, so my best guess is takotsubo cardiomyopathy.”

“English, for the rest of us?” Pepper asked.

“When a sudden traumatic event occurs, the abrupt release of stress hormones can stun the heart muscle and decrease its ability to pump effectively. Generally it hits the left ventricle hardest. A couple of days’ rest without stress helps, and it usually resolves itself within a few weeks, but it’s hardly harmless. Sometimes it’s called broken heart syndrome. I’ve ordered him—fat lot of good that’ll do, considering he’s Tony Stark—” Tony had the good grace to almost flush. “—to see a doctor when he gets back to wherever it is he came from, which will be, when?”

Tony shrugged. “I’ll rig something up. With two genius brains on it, plus the science babies, shouldn’t take long. Worse comes to worse, I can—ugh—ask Strange for a sparkly hand.”

“Wanda mentioned he’s in Mongolia, working on something with a ring of shamans. I think she said he’s expected back next week,” I added.

“That should give me time to preserve my dignity and solve this without having to beg Doctor Balloon Animal for help.” Tony nodded past her. “Can we see him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so by now you have probably figured out that the new arrival is MCU Tony from the same time period as the Wordsmith verse at this point, so, right at the end of Civil War, where he is at his lowest ebb. The two Tonys are exactly the same age, but I figure MCU's body has taken more of a beating, and if he and Pepper stayed apart for a while and he was caring for Rhodey, you know he wasn't eating right, and may have been drinking too much. Plus, remember Wordsmith Tony was fixed up by Helen Cho's Cradle after Siberia, so I'd bet he's in generally better health. 
> 
> The specific difference that JARVIS cites in their physical ages I chose for a reason: 5.15 years is the actual age difference between Tony and Robert Downey Jr. lol. (To be clear, Tony is freaking gorgeous in every frame of CW, and RDJ is gorgeous all the damn time. I said what I said. hehe)
> 
> Tony's newest nickname for Bucky is the Bumble. If you aren't familiar with it, it comes from the Christmas special Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and is short for the Abominable Snow Monster. :D
> 
> (I'm just noticing myself how much softer the nicknames Tony sticks on Bucky in my verse, where they are pals, are than the ones canon Tony uses. Bumble and Olaf, versus Terminator, Robocop, and Manchurian Candidate.)
> 
> And yes, takotsubo cardiomyopathy does exist, and is indeed often called 'broken-heart syndrome'. Its symptoms match what we see Tony suffer in CW. The fandom has used the expression that the sundering of the Avengers, and learning the truth about his parents then finding out Steve had kept it from him for so long, broke Tony's heart figuratively, but it's perfectly reasonable once you read about this condition that it may well have been literal, in this sense. :(
> 
> https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/stress-cardiomyopathy-a-different-kind-of-heart-attack-201509038239  
> https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/309547.php 
> 
> Bonus bit: i don't know what diner threw Tony and Rhodey out :D but here's the Boston pen shop where Pep and Steve got their shop on. https://bromfieldpenshop.com/


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new arrival's account of his universe shocks everybody and dismays Steve and Bucky in particular.

Bucky and Steve, who still looked severely shaken, stayed out in the hallway. Since I’d been the first encounter, and the other Tony didn’t seem upset by me, I went in with Pepper and Tony. “Hey, Stark,” Tony greeted him.

One hand flipped casually his way; then the stranger’s eyes moved to Pepper, and a look flitted across his face like the ghost of past smiles. “Hey, Pep. Er, I mean, Miss Potts, or…”

“Pepper is fine.” She smiled and touched his hand. “And I know I’m not yours, but I’m glad to help all I can, until we can get you back to her.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not—nobody’s gonna be pacing the widow’s walk, or anything like that. The only rush is Rhodey. He needs me.”

Both Tony’s eyebrows almost vanished into his hair. “Do tell. Have to admit, I never thought of my sour patch that way. Although there was that one time in Cabo, waaay too much tequila was involved—” Pepper elbowed him and he shut up.

“Not like that,” the other Tony groaned. “He’s like my brother. It’d feel pervy, especially considering the circumstances. I’ve almost got his new braces sorted—”

“Braces?” Tony instantly got serious. “He’s hurt, your Rhodey? What happened?”

His twin looked baffled for an instant, then his eyes fell on me. “Right, you said no fight over the Accords, so no Civil War.”

“And you said that before,” I replied. “What does it mean?”

He let out a weary huff, rubbed his hand over his face, and proceeded to tell us a story that was more like a nightmare. “So,” Tony said slowly when he paused, “lemme see if I got this right. Half the team wouldn’t sign off on the Accords. Bucky was set up for the UN bombing, taken into custody, and broke out. Steve found him but—he didn’t tell you?”

The other rolled his eyes. “Rogers wouldn’t tell me if the tower caught fire under my ass.”

Tony scowled. “He got a team together to chase Zemo down, not even lip service to the Accords he wouldn’t sign, you went to talk him in, and they fought you? Like, fought fought?”

“I didn’t expect them to, or I would’ve never taken the kid with me. Rhodey got hit by a stray shot. It wasn’t Wilson’s fault, it was mine for letting things get out of hand, or not explaining things better, or—whatever. Anyway, Rhodey’s—he’s paralyzed. I’m building braces, he’s learning to walk again…” I covered my mouth in shock, unable to imagine my fierce, proud ex unable to stand on his own. 

It was hard to look at the other Tony’s bleak expression. Harder still was the utterly dumbfounded look on our Tony’s face. “This is top-level crazy shit, like, reality is really capable of being warped like this? Ross took Avengers to the—the _Raft_? It’s a rumor, here, no more.”

“More than a rumor. It’s hell. I went there, wasn’t sure Ross would let me out, but Wilson told me where they’d gone.”

“Siberia.”

“I went after them, to tell them I’d found proof Barnes was innocent. We cornered Zemo, and he…”

The visitor fell silent. “Showed you a video,” Tony completed the sentence, “thinking that’d finish you off.”

The other man’s eyes narrowed. “It didn’t you?”

“Would have if I hadn’t already known. You didn’t?”

“How the fuck would I have? How did _you_ find out?”

“Natasha called in a marker, got us the Soviets’ Winter Soldier file.”

“And Rogers let you see it?”

“Shit, he gave it to me! You keep asking if Steve told me this or that— _I_ read it, and had to tell _him_! Granted, I already knew HYDRA killed my parents, and we’d been hunting for Buck for three years by then, so finding out they forced him to do it was just the—the spiderweb wrapper on the shit sandwich.”

Two pairs of identical deep brown eyes locked. “That was evocative,” the newcomer said after a minute.

“Thanks. Had to bring my A game. I know I’m hard to impress.”

Identical half-smiles curled both mouths. “There’s two of ‘em now,” I said to Pepper with dread in my heart. “We are up shit creek, sis.”

That drew the stranger’s attention back to us. “This,” he said, stabbing a still slightly tremulous finger at me. “I gotta know how in the fuck this happened. Sis?!?”

“Apparently his Christine is a ‘catty bitch’,” I explained, with air quotes where needed.

“Did I ever say you weren’t?” Tony sniped.

“Watch it, hot rod,” I warned him while Pepper giggled out loud. “I know too much.”

“Oops, true, my bad. We’re all much better off with you using your powers for good.”

I giggled too, but then registered that look of almost-fear back on the other Tony’s face. “No, he doesn’t mean like, real powers,” I hastened to assure him, and even dared put my hand on his. “He makes too much of my gift of gab.” His fingers twitched— _another touch-shy one_ , I thought—but our eyes met, and he tilted his head as though trying to figure me out. 

Tony glanced back toward the observation window and jerked his head in a come-here gesture. “Before you carry on,” he said, “can we get Cap and Olaf in here? JARVIS can record it all, but they’re about to vibrate out of their skins and that would be a mess to have cleaned up, and they probably want to ask—" The other man flinched again, drew his hand from under mine and held it to his chest. “Fuck, Stark! What’d they do, go HYDRA on you?”

With a barely silenced snarl, the visitor threw back the sheet covering him, just as Steve and Bucky stepped through the door. May had taken his shirt off, and EKG tabs were stuck here and there on his skin. They did not conceal the long, puckered pink scar that ran almost the full width of his chest. “Rogers knew,” he hissed. “He knew, and he didn’t tell me, and when I saw the video and flipped out, he and Barnes double teamed me. He did this with the shield Howard made for him. Then he dropped it, and they walked out and left me there.”

Almost as one, the Brooklyn boys halted with matching looks of horror, turned on their heels and shot back out the door. I took off after them. “Guys! Guys, wait!” Several long strides and a leap took me into Bucky’s arms as he started to turn. “Sweetie, stop, please.”

“I did it there too…” Bucky muttered, but his arms folded around me, which was good since my knees were thinking about giving out.

“You did nothing,” I snapped, pulling back. “Look at me, Bucky. You didn’t do anything here, and you sure as hell didn’t do anything there. Whatever happened there is on them. Hey, the other me is a catty bitch, remember? You see me taking that to heart? Heck no. Steve? Steve! Get back here, you!” Me ordering Steve around never failed to amuse Bucky, and even now he couldn’t suppress a little grin. 

Steve was a little ahead of Bucky, but he spun on his heel and stormed back. “I couldn’t—how could I, no matter where I was or what was going on in my head, how could I lie to Tony about that, much less do—do that? If I’d known first, I’d—I’d—”

“I know!” I assured him. “And Tony knows. He said that, the day he read it. I remember. He said he knew if you had read the file first, you would have figured out how to tell him without hurting him. He trusted you, and that trust wasn’t misplaced. So stop beating yourself up. Both of you, knock it off, y’hear?” I glared at them. Bucky glared back, but in that way he had that said he was more likely to kiss me than yell at me. Steve looked down at his feet, and finally nodded. “Okay, now that that’s settled, why don’t you both come help me scare up supper. I put off the team meetup, for obvious reasons, but we still need to eat and so does our company. So—”

Tony’s voice calling my name interrupted. “Bring our puppies back, cornbread, Doublemint says he can stand to—oof—” He was cut short in turn when the other Tony shoved past him, pulling his t-shirt back on and only a little unsteady on his feet.

“I didn’t say get them here, I said I need to get the fuck out of here, Stark, damnit, you know how we are about hospitals, they give us hives, even with Aunt Hottie attending…” His habitual babble ran out when he looked up at us standing some feet away. I could see him take a deep breath and square his shoulders as if preparing for battle. “Rogers.”

His voice was a lot steadier than Steve’s. “Tony…I am so, so sorry. This is—I—” His eyes flicked over to our Tony, now standing shoulder to shoulder with his twin as though for moral support. “When you figure this out, can I go back with him long enough to bust that dumb bastard in the fuckin’ chops?”

“Language,” Tony fired back with his usual smirk back on his face.

Bucky cackled out loud. “You dug that old joke out? Stevie, you little shit.” At the general look of confusion, he groaned, “Uh, Brooklyn, yah? Stevie swore in his fuckin’ sleep. Captain America, not so much, though. So it was a runnin’ gag with the Howlies, somebody let rip with one an’ Steve says ‘language!’ an’ we’d fall about the place.”

“I didn’t, though, after you…” Steve let the sentence trail off, with a significant look at the man who was as much a brother to him as Tony was to me. “After I was with the Avengers for a while, it slipped out on a mission. Tony didn’t let me live it down and he made sure nobody else did either.”

“And here all this time I thought you’d gone prude on us,” Tony snorted. “You’re right, Olaf, he is a little shit, just hiding in a wall of solid muscle. Damn troll.”

We all laughed, except the visitor. The strain in his cheeks and the wariness in his gaze as it flicked from one face to another made me think of a bullied kid waiting for the laughter to be weaponized and turned on him. I stepped out of Bucky’s arms, went to him and put out my hand, leaving the taking of it to him to decide. “Will you come eat with us?” I invited him. “We’ll call out for—something; this lot’ll eat anything.”

“No sushi,” Bucky complained.

“Except for Princess Rapunzel over there,” Tony snarked. “Put a pea under his mattress and see—”

“Hey, Tiny Stark, you’ve been damsel in distress at least twice just since I got here, and that’s not counting the time you were the damsel in the dress!” Bucky fired back.

“I am thoroughly secure in my gender identity, thank you very much, and as long as Pep and I are happy, your elderly opinion matters exactly—”

“Oh, you two,” Pepper snorted. “Just for once—”

“How about nonce?” Tony quipped back and pulled her to his side. Steve was laughing hard, like the unease and guilt was washing out of him. Maybe this time, I shouldn’t wait for the touch-averse newcomer to get over his reluctance. I slipped my hand into his and squeezed, and was immeasurably relieved when he responded in kind.

JARVIS ordered heaps of Indian food from a great little place around the corner, and we crashed on the common floor. Steve sighed for Bruce’s curries, the other Tony asked where his science bro was, and that led to Steve and Tony jointly recounting the main events of the Avengers’ history. It took pressure off the visitor to explicitly share more of his obviously painful past, but we gathered plenty anyway, in his unnerved reactions to some of the most seemingly innocuous things. “Stark, you helped Cap with HYDRA in SHIELD?” “Who’s Strange?” “But JARVIS is here—how’ve you got a Vision too?” “You knew about Barton’s family when?” “Coulson’s _alive_?”

At that last shocked utterance, Tony whipped his phone out. “Think you’d be up for an intellectual gang-bang tomorrow evening?” he asked his double. “With lamb stew? Meet everybody, start brainstorming how to get you home? I’ll get Phil here, unless Fury’s got him deep under somebody’s cover.”

“Um…yeah. Yeah. I want to meet your Avengers. Maybe you can help me figure out where we took a wrong turn, and how to make it right.” The other lifted his chin with an air of both fear and determination. “I—I had a vision, like yours. Nobody’ll listen, they all think I’m—hysterical, I guess, neurotic, which, I probably am, but that’s no excuse—but seeing you, seeing you get along, may give me clues how to get my—hah, _my_ —team back on the same side, in case there’s a Thanos heading our way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two Tonys call each other Stark at first, and MCU Tony continues that, but our Tony (Wordsmith verse Tony) quickly dubbed MCU Tony Doublemint, after the famous old chewing gum ads featuring twins. Names will be addressed in the next chapter.
> 
> And no, that is not a typo; yes, Bucky did call Tony Tiny Stark. lol


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MCU Tony meets the team, gets fed well, and chooses a name.

The next day, I forced myself to focus on my daily grind. I finally got the Shanghai rubber duck guys off my ass, and scheduled a prelim Skype meeting with a French _fragrancier_ eager to sign Tony to an endorsement deal for _eau du Stark_. All day, though, a part of my mind was in the lab where I knew two Tonys were working to get one back to his universe.

Steve had promised to bring the compound crew up to speed, and when I got off the elevator that afternoon to hit the common kitchen and start supper, they were all already settled around the sitting area. (Tony had tried to contact Phil, but to no avail. I finally volunteered to take one for the team and message Fury, who said Phil and his team were in the field. As usual, Fury offered nothing more. I pointedly did not invite him, of course.)

I greeted Nat, Sam and Vision, and hugged Wanda and Pietro. “Pepper says this other universe sounds terrible,” Wanda said. “She says the other Tony, he hates me.”

“No, she did not,” Pietro argued. “She said he fears the other Wanda, but that witch is not you, _sestra_!”

“Bro’s right for once,” I told her with a playful nudge at Pietro. “Nothing our guest tells us about his verse has anything to do with us, Wands. Hey, the other me is a catty bitch!”

“Meow!” Wanda teased, and mimed clawing at me. “You could never.”

“Darn right. Now, would you and Vision come supervise me and the stew?”

When the two Tonys appeared, I was unsurprised to see Rhodey with them. The visiting Tony looked as happy as he had since he fell into our world, with an arm slung around Rhodey’s shoulders. He’d talk a mile a minute, then fall quiet and glance down as if watching Rhodey’s perfectly good legs stride along beside him. It made my chest ache a bit to think we had to send him back to a universe that seemed to value him hardly at all.

From the kitchen I could hear Tony and Rhodey cutting up with the other Avengers, using the horseplay to manage the interactions and keep them from overwhelming our hypervigilant guest. Bucky took advantage of my distraction to slip into the kitchen and sample the stew. My hair sat up as from across the room, Wanda zapped him, just enough to make him jump and swear at her in Russian. I threatened them all with a ladle, then led them out to finish the introductions and announce supper was ready.

Wanda’s briefing from Pepper paid off in a big way. She was so gentle in approaching the visiting Tony, and insistent on apologizing despite what we had said, that his brief edginess faded within minutes. (She wasn’t using her powers, either. I confess, I checked. Heck, if I had the ability to soothe the mind, and was confronted with somebody as skittish as a wild animal around me, I’d be tempted, I can’t lie.)

Everybody crowded into the kitchen to fill bowls, then into the big dining area. It felt like a crazy family Thanksgiving, with voices raised and bread baskets passing up and down the length of the table. The Maximoffs proclaimed the stew the best thing they had eaten since their mother’s cooking, and Bucky threatened to start a roll fight if I cried. (I checked in with him periodically to make sure the general bedlam wasn’t too much for him, but he assured me he was enjoying it.) I asked how Rhodey’s date with Margie from SI accounting went, then had to admit I set them up. Sam gave him grief the rest of the meal, Tony nearly slid under the table laughing, and our visitor looked like he might choke at the realization Rhodey and I had dated.

Steve and Pepper were telling, with much glee, the allegedly true story of how teenage Tony and Rhodey got thrown out of the Boston diner, when I noticed the other Tony staring down into his bowl. I reached over and tapped the rim with my spoon. “How’s the reception there?"

“Great,” he said absently. “Watching a rerun of Brooklyn Nine Nine.”

“You okay? Do you need to leave? If it’s too much for you, that’s okay, nobody’s going to think less of you.”

When he looked up, his eyes were bright, as though with unshed tears. “This is what I wanted.” He gestured to the noisy, happy group. “This is what I wanted the Avengers to be. People who wanted to be together outside of kicking some villain’s ass. People who liked and cared about each other, and always had each other’s backs. If—if there’s a reason I was jerked out of my world and dropped here, I want to know how you got your team to be this, and I couldn’t.”

“Don’t blame me, I didn’t do it,” I said. 

“None of us did it alone.” I should have known Steve’s freaky super soldier hearing would pick up a quiet conversation in the midst of cheery chaos. He leaned across the table, and I was thankful to see our guest did not flinch away this time. “It was a group effort.”

Nat had been, as she usually did, eating quietly and listening, but she put her spoon down now. “I used to have nothing,” she told the other Tony, “but then I got this…this team, this family, and I’m better for it. Steve’s right, though. We all did it together.”

“And we’ll help you all we can, as long as you’re here, Tony,” Steve went on. “And when you and Tony get things lined up to get you home…argh. We need something to call you other than Tony. I mean, I know it’s your name, but, it’s—”

“Weird, and a little scary,” Sam put in with his usual smart-alecky grin. “No world should be expected to survive with two Tony Starks in it.”

The rest of the meal was taken up with debating what we should call our visitor. It was amusing as hell, but by the time we finished eating and returned to sprawl all over the sitting area, Vision, who had been sitting with Wanda taking everything in, made a contribution that stopped everybody in their metaphorical tracks. “When I began my life in this form, Christine asked me what I wished to be called. Names have power, and I told her I thought it an auspicious thing that she gave me that power over myself. Since our guest has at the moment little control of his situation otherwise, I believe it fitting that we should grant him at least this much, to choose what he wishes for us to call him.”

“Vision’s right,” Pepper agreed. “You people sound like we just adopted a puppy!”

After a moment of relative quiet, Steve said, “Well, we kind of did. Look at those eyes.”

“They’re my eyes too!” Tony griped.

“And just as beautiful,” Pepper assured him with a kiss on the cheek from her perch on the arm of the big sofa.

“You never call _me_ a puppy,” he pouted at her.

“Get a room, you two,” Sam jibed.

“This is our room,” Tony pointed out. “Our house, in fact.”

“Back to the subject,” Steve sighed. “Choices, people. Choices are good. If I’ve learned nothing else from Dr. Rausch, I got that much. So, give the fella some options.” 

Voices began to pipe up. Wanda and Pietro, naturally, threw out every possible name associated with twins. “Valid,” Tony concurred. “You could be my evil twin, after all.”

“Or you could be mine,” the other retorted, seeming a little more relaxed.

Bucky suggested the dumbest names imaginable. “Buck!” Steve hissed, trying not to be heard (but I was sitting right next to Bucky on the smaller sofa, how was I not going to hear?). “Really, Buck? ‘Mimeograph’ is not a name!”

“Made him laugh, though. Made Chris laugh too.” I couldn’t see his face as he turned toward Steve on his other side, but it sounded like those goals interested him more than actually scoring points in the impromptu competition that was now raging.

“Dopple,” Sam suggested. “Short for doppleganger.”

“Sounds like a kind of shoe,” Steve dismissed. “How about something technical? Mark Two.”

“Been there, built that!” Tony protested. 

“Synonyms for two, then,” Rhodey put forth. “ _Twee, bi, dva, dos_ , twain, deuce…”

The visitor looked thoughtful. “Not Twain, that’s Shania, and I’m too old to look good in a catsuit and cowboy boots. Deuce…maybe. Easy enough to answer to, and it’s not like I’m taking up permanent residence here.” The smile he flashed at Rhodey was tired, but unmistakably Tony Stark. “Should’ve known I could count on you, honey bear. You always did have more brain cells in action than any six other people I could—”

The next instant the smile vanished and he covered his mouth, his eyes suddenly huge as if he had appalled himself. By contrast, the room erupted in amusement. Tony cackled, and Sam was all for calling Rhodey out for an inter-service brain challenge. Wanda hid her face in Vision’s chest, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Rhodey hollered back and hurled a couple of throw pillows before Pepper calmed the unruly crowd. I frowned, though, when the newly christened Deuce continued to stare around looking like he was fighting not to curl into himself. “You okay, darlin’?” I called over.

“Uh…yeah, fine, just, just dandy. I, ah, probably should go hit my cot before I abuse you people’s hospitality anymore. I eat shoe leather so often you’d think I was on a keto diet.”

Pietro made a puzzled face. “Tony joshes with everyone. You are only living up to his reputation. Or down, I suppose, depending on one’s perspective.”

“Sure,” Bucky agreed easily, while Tony stuck his tongue out at Pietro, and Wanda called them both children. “I’ve had that same theory for a while, in fact, Deuce. The Avengers got about three brain cells among ‘em, and most th’ time, Rhodes has all three.”

That let Bucky in for considerable tongue-in-cheek verbal abuse and an attempted beat-down by Steve. All in all, it was a normal, relaxed evening off for the team, but Deuce’s big eyes held the awe of an explorer dropped on an alien planet—and maybe he was, I realized. As the thought crossed my mind, Tony and Rhodey’s eyes met, and Rhodey stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Attention please! I’ve been banging away in the lab with these two all day on the mechanics of opening a portal to get our boy back where he needs to be, when he needs to be there. Pietro, with the weekend here we’ll want to pull you in to help; same for Peter.”

“While he’s here, though,” Tony picked up, “he’s asked for our help. We don’t know for sure if there are Infinity Stones in his verse, or a Thanos looking for ‘em like Pokemons, but it seems safe to assume there are. That being the case, that world needs a functional Avengers team to be ready, and from what Deuce says, his team is about as dysfunctional as it’s possible to be outside of a _telenovela_. So. Spitballing time, people. How do we help him fix it?”

I got a little off task explaining to Steve and Bucky that spitballing was about brainstorming, not baseball. By the time I rejoined the discussion, Sam, in full counselor mode, had pointed out that the first step to ‘fixing’ interpersonal relationships was figuring out when and how they got broken. “The _when_ would be Ultron, and the _how_ …that’d be me,” Deuce said, his tone flat and his eyes downcast again. Seeing him sitting next to Tony, but so dispirited, so broken, tore at my heart.

“Bullshit,” Tony said crisply. “I refuse to believe you and your Bruce are smarter than me and my Bruce, and we couldn’t get that mess off the ground; the Mind Stone did it.” Vision touched the glowing yellow gem in his forehead, his face thoughtful. “So, evil twin of mine, instead of sticking the scarlet letter of blame on your ass, how about you just tell us the facts and let us draw the conclusions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ketchupcrisp, did you see the small shout out to your Symphony verse? :D
> 
> _Eau du Stark_ , complete with the less than accurate signifier, was stolen from the current issue of Miles Morales Spider-Man, which features Tony posing for an ad for this cologne he endorsed. lol


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deuce shares the rest of his verse's horrific history with the team. He and Tony set to work to reopen the portal that dumped him here, with a brief break to talk to Chrissy.

If I had thought the story Deuce recounted the night before was a nightmare, it was nothing compared to the horror that he unfolded now. It was all so—so _wrong_ , as if everything that could possibly have gotten fucked up, did. Wanda clasped her brother’s hands and wept when Deuce told of his verse’s Pietro dying. Pepper comforted Tony while Deuce, his throat choked, said his JARVIS hadn’t survived Ultron’s attack. 

“Wait, did you have places for your Avengers in your tower?” Nat asked at one point. Deuce nodded. “Then why didn’t they move in?” He just shrugged, but that turned my thoughts down a path not unexpected.

A few moments later, Steve asked when Deuce paused, “Your Steve didn’t ask your help to look for Bucky?”

“Hell, Rog--Cap, I told you last night, he wouldn’t trust me with the key to the john if the paper needed changing. Not that I’d know how to do that, admittedly, but—”

It all clicked for me then. “Steve,” I said urgently. “SHIELDRA.” Pressed as closely to Deuce’s side as I had ever seen him get to anybody, Tony swore softly. “Deuce,” I said, “HYDRA got into your SHIELD, right? Did one of their plants brief your Steve before the Avengers met? Because that very nearly fucked these folks from jump city.”

“They poisoned my mind against everybody, but especially Tony,” Steve agreed. “if we hadn’t figured it out, and then found proof, we could have ended up as badly as you guys have.”

“They blocked our messages to each other,” Nat added. “We didn’t even know, for a good while, that Tony was trying to welcome us here.”

Deuce looked dazed. “That…yeah, that could have happened. How’d you find out?”

“Pep and Chrissy can tell you more about that than anybody else,” Tony told him, and so we did, from Pepper’s calls to Fury and Steve that first made us suspicious, to my talks with Steve that uncovered the warped ‘briefings’ he had been subjected to. “We found confirmation in the SHIELD database Nat and JARVIS hacked into and downloaded,” Tony finished, “so check over the stuff you…oh, wait, you and your J didn’t sort through that before it was dumped online, because you didn’t even know it was going on! What the fuck? Your Rogers throws all your SHIELD good guys to the wolves and then preaches about protecting individual liberties? After bitching at you about keeping secrets?? Has he gotten therapy?” 

Tony, or rather Deuce, giving Tony The Look was a moment I will cherish forever. “This is crazy, but yeah, it could be the explanation, or part of it. I mean, face it, I’m not the most likable—”

“Save it, Doublemint. Have _you_ gotten therapy? Yeah, no, don’t give me the evil eye again, evil twin. Dr. Rausch, our therapist—listen to me. She’s my therapist, but you’re me, so, yeah, our. Plus, she’s Steve and Buck’s too. She’s sharp. You could learn a lot from a little time spent with her. She makes house calls for Olaf, bet she’d salivate at the idea of getting hold of another me. That, or run screaming. She’s great though. She keeps all the secrets, and she can handle most anything. Never lets a word slip, even after Cap told her all his sordid sexual history.”

“You’re assuming a lot, Tony,” was Steve’s cool reply, “thinking three years is enough time for me to have told her my entire sexual history.”

Tony stared, and then fell face first off the couch howling. “Oh, oh fuck, I think I peed on myself. You never fail to deliver, Steve.” The laughs were quieter now, more subdued as the hour grew late, and Deuce still looked sad. I wondered if he wished he and his Steve had been as close as ours were. 

Pepper, thinking ahead as always, had had the cleaning crews freshen the residential floors, and people began to head off to their old apartments for the night. Wanda hugged Tony tightly, her emotions still plainly raw. After an uneasy glance at them, Deuce headed my way. “You,” he said. “I want time with you, one on one. You’re one big difference between this place and mine.”

“I’m far from being that big a difference, but I’ll help you all I can.” I reached for his hand again.

“Stark warned me you were all touchy-feely,” he grumbled. “He’s no better. Wants me to talk to his therapist?”

“What Tony wants, Tony gets, more often than not. You know that better than anybody. And he’s right, talking to Dr. Rausch would be good for you, I’d say. Oh, you’re talking to Pepper too, right?” Deuce started to object. “No. I’m not asking. You are talking to Pepper, I can promise you that, because you also know that what she wants, she gets.” Sorrow darkened his face again, and before I thought, I was reaching out to hug him. “Oops. Sorry. It took a while to get Tony used to this. I don’t mean to invade your space. Just push me back.”

“No. it’s, uh, it’s okay. Night.” He fled back to Tony's side.

Rhodey had to fly back to DC so I kissed his cheek, then collected Bucky from some boastful tale he was trying to convince Sam was true. As soon as we got on the elevator, his brash façade faded. “You okay, doll? I know bein’ with the Avengers is weird every day, but this is a whole ‘nother thing.”

“It is,” I sighed, “but yeah, I’m all right. It’s just, hearing about things I experienced, I participated in, and—Deuce sounds just like Tony, but he never mentions my name because I—well, his Christine—wasn’t there for him. It’s surreal. It’s…”

“You talk a good game,” he rumbled into my ear as he pulled me into his arms, “but it bothers you, just like the rest of us. No,” he scolded when I tried to apologize, “you ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry for. You try so hard to help everybody around you, sometimes you forget you got feelin’s too. Take some of your own advice, wouldya? Or take mine, for once?”

“For once,” I scoffed. “As if I don’t listen to you.” His husky chuckle vibrated through my body, pressed close to his. When the elevator doors opened onto my floor, I said, “Stay with me?” He looked uncertain. “We don’t have to get busy. Just…hold me?”

Conflicting emotions chased across his face, before he smiled. “You trust me to hold you, doll, I won’t ever let you go, swear to God.”

By morning, several Avengers were debating over breakfast about how best to help Deuce. “I think we should keep him,” Wanda opined around a bite of muffin. “We can help him heal from the way his team has hurt him. They don’t deserve him!”

“I agree with that last part,” Steve sighed, “but Wanda, his universe needs him, whether they deserve him or not.”

“And you wouldn’t say his Rhodes doesn’t deserve him, right?” Bucky put in. “We gotta do what’s right for the most, and Deuce wants to go back. Besides, like Pepper said, he ain’t our puppy, even if he does have puppy dog eyes.”

“The existential horror of a universe with two Tony Starks in it aside,” Sam joked, “we know how tough Tony is, and there’s no reason to think Deuce is any less strong. He can handle himself. We do need to support him while he’s here though, as fully as we can, to make up a little bit for what his team hasn’t given him and let him go back as recharged as possible.”

After Pietro sucked down another helping of breakfast casserole, he said excitedly, “I have been thinking, maybe he can stay here for as long as he wants, and we can open a way to put him back into his own timeline wherever we want. We could even take him a long way back, so he can use our knowledge to mend his relations with the other Avengers!”

The elevator opened just then and disgorged a spiderling in worn jeans and a geeky t-shirt with his backpack tossed over one shoulder. “Morning, uh, everybody,” Peter greeted the group assembled around the kitchen table. “Mister JARVIS said you were all here. What’s up?”

“At the moment, discussing whether someone could go back in time and fix bad relationships before they get bad,” I said. It was a great idea, I had to admit, though fraught with complexity.

“Oh,” Peter grinned. “We talked about that in class once. Sorry, no can do. Time’s immutable. It’s about your personal timeline, see? If you go into the past, that past becomes your future, and your former present becomes your past, which can't now be changed by your new future.” He swiped a strip of Wanda’s bacon, heedless of her menacing glare. “Mr. Stark already in the lab?”

Looking briefly disappointed at the swift shootdown of his theory, Pietro downed the last of his third glass of juice and jumped up. “Yes, and, well, let us say he has something that will greatly surprise you.” He smirked at Peter’s look of mingled bemusement and anticipation. “Race you to the elevator.”

“Oh, no fair!” Peter wailed as Pietro vanished, and followed him, with a muffin in each hand.

“Hey, JARVIS,” I said into the quiet, “record the lab for the next little while, would you? I really want to see the look on Peter’s face.” Amid a round of fond snickers, JARVIS concurred.

The kitchen cleared; Steve went out to Resilience Center, and the compound team headed back to base after exacting my pledge to keep them informed. Bucky confessed he wanted to offer help in the lab, but didn’t want to upset Deuce, so he headed off for his usual weekend stint in the Brooklyn garden. I spent the morning on paperwork, then headed for the lab myself. Tony’s ‘science babies’, Peter and Pietro, were busily hustling around. Metallica blared over the speakers, and Tony and Deuce were huddled over holos. “You two did eat breakfast, right?” I called.

“They did,” Pepper confirmed from her perch on the much-loved old couch, casually dressed and tapping away on her StarkPad.

Deuce peeled off and approached. “Uh, evil twin, can you wrangle this crew for a few? I need to, um…” He gestured between himself, me, and the door.

Tony glanced over his shoulder and waved us off. “Go. Get all of your prurient questions answered. Cornbread, be as explicit as you have to be. He’s been nibbling around the edges of shit, trying to be subtle. We don’t _do_ subtle, Doublemint, remember?”

I grabbed Deuce’s hand and hauled him out of the lab and into the elevator, asking how the scientific meeting of minds was going. He started to chatter about this nanotech thing he was working on, that apparently had Tony giddy with excitement, then stopped mid-sentence with “Wait. No, that’s not what you were asking.”

“No, but please carry on. I’m a huge science geek, even if I can only make out half the words.” I led the way off onto my floor and to my coffee maker (the Iron Man special edition, of course, souped up by Tony one night when he had had too much caffeine and Pepper was out of town). While I made myself a cup, then scooted over to let Deuce at it, he kept babbling, and knowing exactly what that signified, I let him, while I pondered how much detail to go into about my history with Tony and Pepper.

He kept watching me, too, as I led the way to my window seat that overlooked Lower Manhattan. When the babble began to peter out, I said, “I’ve been thinking through where our timelines could have split.”

“It’s freaky enough the Maximoffs treat Stark like a Dutch uncle. And the kid—May already knows he’s Spider-Man, and she hasn’t killed your Stark over it…and all your Avengers know too, and love him, and he talks about building Legos with _Barnes_. And the Christine Everhart of my universe is not a feisty Southern belle who would cut a bitch for Tony Stark.”

“I would do that,” I agreed. “Please don’t call her a catty bitch in front of that bunch again, though. As it is, it’s gonna take longer for me to live that down than it did me shanking one of Justin Hammer’s minions with a corn dog skewer.”

“You… _what_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Man coffee maker really exists, but don't buy it. I got one last Christmas (I may have mentioned this in notes on an earlier story) and it only lasted a week. It's very cool looking, but doesn't work worth a crap.
> 
> Peter introduces the MCU's explanation of time travel here! Believe it or not, it is a valid and widely entertained theory. https://www.businessinsider.com/avengers-endgame-science-advisor-time-travel-theories-2019-5?r=US&IR=T


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers, Pepper and Chrissy work with Deuce to find a way back to his home universe, and to make a plan to reunite his team to face whatever attacks may lie ahead. If they also spoil him a bit, well, that's nobody else's business.

I took another swig of coffee for fortification, rewound to the beginning, and told him everything. Yes, everything; and as I did, the tiny forks in the branches of time began to appear through the foliage. Deuce had met his verse’s Christine in Vegas, yes, but there hadn’t been much conversation, let alone interviewing, between there and California; and once in his bedroom, things had gone as one usually expects such things to, not the way they had for Tony and me. He didn’t even know if she was Southern by birth, so that first moment that had softened my prejudice toward Tony, when he mocked my accent and then apologized for my upset, never happened for them. “Probably for the best though,” Deuce said into his mug. “I…the way I was back then, I don’t know that I would’ve noticed, or cared, or tried to say sorry.”

“Bull puckey. Maybe everything possible can happen somewhere in the multiverse, but I’d wager that in most universes, some things stay the same; and one of those is that for all y’all’s bullshit, all Tony Starks have a good heart.” He scoffed; I crossed my eyes at him and continued with my account.

Deuce only stopped me to ask an occasional pointed question, and listened in silence for the most part, something I knew Tony didn’t do unless he was focused on committing every detail of a presentation to memory, or utterly engaged by the subject matter, or both. In his verse, there had apparently been no rumors that he faked his own kidnapping, so no reason for his Pepper to ask anybody, including Christine, for help. “Tony told me Ob…Stane was in bed with HYDRA for years, might even have tipped them to where his dad and mom were going, the night they were killed. Wouldn’t put it past him to have planted those rumors here himself. He might’ve figured, if your Tony died like he was supposed to, it wouldn’t matter, and if somehow he didn’t, it’d wreck what little credibility he had. He was probably annoyed as fuck that Pep brought you in.”

“Good.” I took a few deep breaths to cool the old anger that came simmering up yet again. “Did Tony tell you when Pep and I found out what all Stane did, we flew to California to piss on the rat bastard’s grave?”

He gaped. “You did not!” I just grinned, and he laughed for the first time. “It’s way too late for me to bring my verse’s Christine into the Avengers loop, or what’s left of it.”

“Yeah. I don’t think it’s me, or any version of me, necessarily, that you’re looking to incorporate, though. I think it’s the communication that you’re missing, and that’s something you can do yourself.”

“Not like this,” he objected. “I’m good with the glib. I can work the surface appearance, the social patter. Deep stuff, feelings, not so much.”

“Tony used to say that. Still does, sometimes, but it isn’t nearly as true as it might once have been. He’s learned. He started with a few people he trusted, then expanded his circle. You’d be starting from a little farther behind, yeah, but he was able to do it, so you can too.” I held the dark eyes, at once known and strange, with mine, and smiled. “Fair warning though, expect to be spoiled until you head home. I’d cut a bitch for every Tony Stark, all right, and I expect every Avenger would do the same.”

Thankfully, the team did not make a liar of me. On Sunday morning, Clint appeared at the tower (though thankfully not in the ventilation system). Nat had called him about our unexpected guest, and he had to see for himself. That was how we learned that Deuce had still not told us everything about his recent ordeal; specifically, how we found out his verse’s Clint had taunted and blamed him for Rhodey’s accidental shooting. Clint’s reaction was to head for the lab and beg Tony to let him go back with Deuce to, as he so pungently put it, beat all of the shit out of that elephant-fucker Barton (no, nobody asked precisely what that meant, that I know of at least. I certainly wasn’t about to).

Since Pietro was on lab duty, the twins both stayed over at the tower. Wanda still wanted to keep Deuce, and made darn sure he knew it. By Monday, she had wormed her way into, if not his affections, certainly his tolerance. (Deuce wouldn’t admit to it, but from his account, I halfway suspected he had secretly aided and abetted his Cap in breaking their Wanda and the other rogue Avengers out of the Raft.)

Peter was beside himself with joy at having _two_ Mister Starks to focus his mingled hero-worship and snark on. He pumped Deuce for every tidbit about his verse. Being Peter, he completely overlooked the fact that Deuce had taken his fifteen-year-old Spider-Man to Europe as backup to bring his mutinous teammates back, seized on the one element of the heartbreaking tale that resonated with him, and ran with it. “Hey, Captain America, sir! Mister Deuce says I snagged your shield! Well, the other me snagged the other you’s shield. Do you think I could? Can we suit up and try?”

Yes, the next thing we all knew, we were in the gym and Peter was twirling overhead on his webs like some feral carnival ride. Steve looked unsure. “Deuce—he doesn’t know, he’s just a kid, he’s not trying to make light of what you went through—what your Rogers put you through—”

Deuce gave Steve a longsuffering little glare. “Quit trying to apologize for shit you didn’t do, Cap.” He made a shooing gesture. “Go, let Underoos beat your elderly ass for everybody to see.”

Bucky looked like he couldn’t decide whether to cackle or scream. “Why the hell’d you say that?” he demanded of Deuce around a laugh. “Stevie ain’t ever, ever, been known to back off from a challenge, much less one like that.”

“Exactly.” Deuce looked smug, instead of bothered as I had feared, and he laughed and whooped right along with Tony and the rest of us as Peter and Steve bounced off walls and around each other, half sparring, half playing. Bucky and Deuce even got a brief and playful shoving match going, and I was heartened at the thought that when our science brigade opened a portal and sent the other Tony home, he would be able to face the people he had feared without as much of a fight with his inner feelings, from having seen what good people they could be.

As she had promised, Pepper sought me out after having The Talk with Deuce. My hunches were right, as far as they went; he and his Pep were ‘on a break’ and he did indeed think ‘break’ and ‘breakup’ meant the same thing. Her eyes red, though, Pepper confessed she had lost it briefly when she found out their break had been weeks long, was still going on, and that Deuce had battled through all the horrors he had described to us—his team turning on him, physically fighting him, leaving him helpless and injured thousands of miles from home—and never even told her.

“I know, he’s not my Tony. I don’t have the right to feel anything, I suppose, but I was so _angry_ , with his Rogers, with his Pepper for not even touching base with him, with him—oh, was I angry with him, even more maybe than I was with Tony when he assumed I was leaving him! I got emotional, and he reacted the way he would to his Pepper at first, I think, and, well…there was some yelling, and some tears, on both our accounts.”

She shook my head as if at a loss for words, and I hugged her. “You don’t have to tell me anything, sis. I know you told him what you thought he needed to hear. Hopefully it got through his pointed head and he will take it home with him.”

Progress toward getting Deuce home was slow, at best. He and Tony had to figure out how to detect and measure a shitload of parameters associated with the multiverse, so they had to invent tech from scratch that would do that, then decipher how to create an opening between universes, then determine exactly which verse was his and how to get him there in one piece and still reasonably sane. We weren’t stressing, though; I guess we all had adopted Pietro’s theory that once the procedures were worked out, the portal could be opened at any point in the other verse’s timeline. Deuce really could stay with us for a while, and still go home only moments after he left.

That didn’t make it easier for him; he worried about his Rhodey, though Tony tried to set his mind at ease. “Think of it like your verse has hit pause, Doublemint. Your platypus is fine. He just froze in the middle of a fierce series of bicep curls, or he’s in a holding pattern scrolling through some porn on his StarkPad, or he’s napping and stopped mid-snore—” Tony yelped and ducked when Rhodey came at him with hands outstretched and mayhem on his mind. 

It made Deuce laugh, though, and making him happy seemed to have become a group goal. Instead of taking his sarcasm badly, as I suspected his team had, we gave as good as we got. I cooked like a maniac, determined to take advantage of this grace period to put some meat on those bones. In unspoken accord, the same strategy we had used to ease Tony into welcoming and seeking out positive touch was put into play with Deuce, though more cautiously, since in many cases the people who wore their faces had done nothing but raise their hands to harm him.

On Tuesday, five days after Deuce’s arrival, Bucky came into my office looking as pleased as I had ever seen him. His words, however, did not at first bear that out. “Bad news, doll. Gotta take a rain check on our lunch date.”

“That sucks,” I pouted. “You look awful happy delivering that bad news.”

“Aw.” He kissed my cheek. “Don’t trip over that lower lip!” In reply, I stuck it out even farther. I was fucking with him, of course; whatever was taking him away must be something good, and he was fucking with me obviously, so, payback seemed in order. “Just got done with Dr. Rausch, an’ she’s stayin’ for lunch with me.”

“Oh. Well, that is nice. Is that professional, though?”

“See, that’s the thing. That deli downtown that Tony likes so much? Turns out Deuce’s world’s got one too, and they deliver, an’ I might have talked him into joinin’ us for a bite an’ to meet the good doc. So, yeah, totally professional-like.” I had to admit I was equally delighted, especially when he came back a couple of hours later to confide he had left our therapist-on-call and our multiverse visitor deep in conversation. Having this kind of time would surely be good for Deuce, to rest and gather himself.

It wasn’t all healthy hearty food and laughs over home videos, needless to say. Phil remained ‘professionally unavailable’, and a couple more calls had Fury sounding suspicious, so I quit trying. Deuce admitted he wasn’t sure his questionable ticker would see him through meeting his supposedly-dead friend, anyway. Concerned his other self might get stir-crazy, Tony offered to let him take an Iron Man suit for a spin around town, but Deuce got halfway in before he had a near-panic attack that Tony had to talk him through. When Tony told us later that Deuce had admitted he had been too anxious to suit up since his nightmarish attack in Siberia, Steve stood up, walked across the kitchen, and put his fist through a cabinet. The whole cabinet, not the door.

When Deuce and Tony weren’t trying another angle on portal-building, they were with every team member who had a minute, putting together a plan to mold the Sokovia Accords of that wounded world into a tool to bring their Avengers back together. The Accords were only part of the break, though, and not even, to my mind, the major one. Deuce asked a smaller group to help him work through that: Tony, Pepper, Bucky and Steve—and me. “You helped get this bunch to talk to each other,” Deuce said. “I need to do that. Once I jerk a knot in Ross, and find a way to get Rogers and his merry band in the clear, I’ve got to persuade them to come back. I’ll tell them about this Thanos character. The thing is, I’m not sure they’ll believe me, about this little vacation, or anything I learn from you guys.”

“Got that covered, evil twin.” Tony brandished a phone. “I’m putting everything we know about the Infinity Stones and Thanos on here. Our current version of the Accords, too; and all the relevant edits from the SHIELD files, the HYDRA stuff Chrissy got, even the Soviet files on the Winter Soldier program. Sorry to have to bring that up, Olaf.”

Bucky twitched a little, and leaned into my arm around him. His voice was steady, though. “No strain, Shellhead. I got the file T’Challa gave me too, the one Zemo killed that Soviet for, so’s you can scan that in too.”

“That works,” Tony nodded. “Plus some bonus tracks, dvd-only Easter eggs, you know the drill. Had to upgrade this piece of shit, though. Damn, man, I know you’ve been going through it, but did you have to let your tech go to hell too?”

“My tech?” Deuce demanded, half aghast and half amused as he snatched the Starkphone. “You were the one drooling on yourself like a Chihuahua after a Porterhouse when I told you about my nanotech!”

“Okay, you two, enough,” Bucky pretended to break up the nonexistent fight, then returned to the topic ostensibly under discussion. “Obviously, Deuce, everythin’s not gonna be exactly the same, but—”

“It’s a start,” Deuce replied, gratitude and wonder in his face. “I can check it against what we had, see if HYDRA blocked my Avengers from building ourselves into a team. If they only told our Rogers the negative, which, granted, there was a lot of that where I’m concerned. I just hope it’s not too little too late.”

“After what he did to you,” Steve said stoutly. “only time can fix that, unless Tony lets me come with you and knock some sense into that clown.” To the general round of fond laughter, he went on, his sincerity evident in his every word, “I’m serious. I’d do it in a heartbeat. Hearing that, seeing what I—he did to you, it—it makes me wanna…” He waved his hands, unable to speak. 

Deuce nodded. “I know. Thank you. Seeing you guys, how you are, makes me want to build the same thing, or as close as I can get, if it’s not too late. I told Christine, I’m not good with feelings, but your Dr. Rausch is one smart cookie, and I think she’s given me some ideas of how to start. And,” he added and lifted the phone, “I have another idea. If it’s okay with you, I want to grab some video of you. Talking about your verse, just—hanging out, being you. It’ll help to convince everybody I don’t need a reserved rubber room, if I can show them the things that are different. And I…can watch it sometimes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon, it's notable that in Homecoming, Tony suddenly started to sound like he was finally getting the therapy he needed so badly. My headcanon was that that may have been part of the deal when he and Pepper reconciled.
> 
> In this verse, however, he may have gotten a little taste of how useful and helpful therapy could be from that nice long talk with Dr. Rausch that Bucky set him up with in this chapter...


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deuce gathers intel, with our team's help, and finally goes home!

Deuce asked the rest of the team for their permission to record them, and after general consent, the next couple of days we had a Tony Stark creeping around the tower like a deranged paparazzo. He captured the twins in the workshop playing fetch with DUM-E, Sam and Rhodey comparing fraternity dance steps, and Peter and Bucky building the London Tower Bridge out of Legos. When the compound crew dropped in again, Nat even allowed him access to her studio, and the ‘gal squad’ invited him up to the roof. I got used to finding him silently videoing me reaming out the woman who held my old spot at Vanity Fair, kicking back with my cross-stitch and a wine slushie, or sparring with Bucky with our bamboo swords in the gym.

He pulled everybody who was willing aside to record brief comments. Wanda talked to her alternate self (so did her brother). Pepper, Rhodey and Steve left dispatches for their opposite numbers too. Despite Deuce’s insistence that he and his spider-kid were not close, Peter wanted to send a message, and asked Deuce not to watch it. Not having another Christine to talk to, I just gave a Readers Digest Condensed version of my place in the Avengers’ past and present, and the places we had teased out where our verses diverged. Even JARVIS joined in, giving instructions for Deuce’s FRIDAY. Bucky declined, though, surprising me until he confessed he was afraid he couldn’t keep his emotions in check. “Deuce says his Barnes is hidin’ out in Wakanda, so there’s nobody there for me to talk to but his Rogers. All I’d do is cuss him for bein’ an idiot, an’ I figure Stevie’s got that covered.”

They were going to be great resources for Deuce to take home—when a way to get him home was found, though that was looking less hopeful with every hour. By Thursday afternoon, when Wanda called to say Strange was back from his trip to Asia, Tony had to admit defeat. “You aren’t gonna like him, and he’s not gonna like you, because he doesn’t like me,” he told Deuce as Pepper and I entered, trailed by Steve and Bucky, “but to get you back to your world and your normal state of bickering with your Cap, we’ll have to suck it up, buttercup.”

A short time later, Wanda was portaled into the lab, with her instructor on her heels. “You people can’t do anything,” he grumbled. “Damn surprised you don’t call me when someone catches cold or has a hangnail.”

“Hello to you too, Stephen, and it’s lovely to see you as always,” Pepper returned cheerfully.

The sorcerer actually gulped. ‘Forgive me, Miss Potts. _You_ have been nothing but respectful and considerate on every occasion.” He smiled, she smiled back, and Tony very nearly snarled.

I was a little surprised (only a little) that Deuce took charge of the situation. “All right, enough of the Discovery Channel alpha male exhibition. Mister—”

“Doctor. Stephen Strange.”

Deuce cocked his head. “Rings a bell. Bet there’s one of you in my verse. Wonder if he’s a smartass wizard too. I’ll look him up, if you can get me a bus transfer back.” 

Quickly he (and Tony, when he stopped gritting his teeth) explained the situation. “At first we were aiming for the exact moment he fell into our verse,” Tony said, “but then we thought, maybe incorporate a little wiggle room, so, half an hour after? That way there’s no chance of him running into himself.”

“That wouldn’t matter,” Strange said, “unless they had an interaction that caused another timeline to split off. The more of those ‘dead end universes’ that spawn, the more unstable the multiverse as a whole becomes. I can’t manipulate time to order like that, anyway. The Time Stone’s power is outside the natural order and must be used sparingly and with extreme caution.”

“But I’ve been gone a week!” Deuce protested.

“The cosmos,” Strange remarked, “doesn’t care.” He began making passes with his hands and the stone in its pendant around his neck began to glow green. While my friends reassured Deuce, I stepped aside long enough to text Rhodey, who was in a useless briefing (his words, not mine) and leaped at the chance to escape. 

“I still wish you could stay,” Wanda was sighing as I rejoined the group.

Deuce actually grinned at her. “Never imagined I’d hear that coming from Wanda Maximoff’s mouth—hey, hey, don’t get all weepy on me now,” he hastily added as her face fell. “I just…I like you, witchypoo, which is the last thing I expected, and I wish—I hope—maybe I can find a way to make peace with our Wanda, and get along. I’ve got to get back, for that, and my Rhodey, and to be ready for who- or whatever comes at us, and…for my Pepper. Maybe not _my_ Pepper—”

“Your Pepper,” Pep said in a tone that left no room for doubt. “I can’t imagine a world where Virginia Potts doesn’t love Tony Stark.”

“Somebody can,” I added mischievously. “Remember that fanfic we found where you married Happy and Tony married Steve?”

Pepper snickered with me. Tony and Steve—and Deuce—all looked as though they might trip over their jaws hanging open. “Hey, now!” Bucky objected. “Hold up, I thought me an’ Stevie were this epic seventy-year pinin’ away romance.”

“You are, sometimes,” I agreed. “Depends on who’s writing the fic. I’m either your beard—though why, I mean, hello, twenty-first century—or we’re having a threesome.”

Steve and Bucky pretend-tussled over my favors. I burst into giggles, and Tony gave a massive fake pout. “And you wouldn’t even consider scening with Pep and me, cornbread. I’m deeply hurt.”

“It’d feel like incest,” I retorted.

In the place of a reply, Tony put on an elaborate show of checking out Steve’s butt. “I will concede, if Pep gave up on me, I might think about tapping that, Cap.”

“Better not,” Steve cautioned. “You never know. I might have a very jealous secret lover.”

Tony gaped even more, and we all shared the laugh. I prayed Deuce would get home safely, and find this kind of friendship with his team.

An interested _hm_ caught all our attention. A fiery figure, like his portals but shaped like an endless moebius loop, floated in the air in front of Strange, and he was examining it with evident fascination. “Well, this is remarkable. There’s a gap already extant between our universe and another one, likely the one our second Stark here came from. Can’t tell which side it was opened from, but it seems to open to a moment in his time continuum matching the time you said he dropped through. It’s not very stable, though, so you’ll have to use it now or risk losing access altogether. I can hold it for a few moments, with your help, Wanda.”

“Wha—right now?” Tony sputtered.

“That or not at all!” Strange snapped as Wanda hurried over; unable to create portals herself, she still could lend her power to his. The back of my neck prickled as she unfurled streams of crimson energy. “And I for one have a hard enough time tolerating one Tony Stark, let alone two. I’ll need a couple of minutes to stabilize the portal and confirm it’ll accommodate even one human, so say your bon voyages now.” He turned sharply away, and began to murmur and move his hands again, this time manifesting strings of luminous sigils that looked like a cross between quantum equations and Elvish runes.

“Oh, Deuce!” Pepper cried. “The team wanted to say goodbye.” She caught him up in a hug, and growled, “She loves you, Tony Stark, I’d bet my life on it. Just tell her everything, listen to her, be real with her.” With an eye-to-eye glare and a kiss on the forehead, she drew away.

“Potts is right.” Tony moved over to his double. “About the talking and listening part, definitely. Applies to everything else you’ve got on your plate too. Believe me, I know we aren’t good with that, but it’s what has to happen, to straighten out your Avengers and whip your Accords into shape. Check on SHIELD first, see if we’re right that HYDRA fucked with your Capsicle’s head, that’ll give you a point A to start from.”

“I dunno how you’ll find your Rogers,” Steve added, “but unless he’s something so different from me that I can’t imagine, he’s gonna be waiting, wanting to hear from you—Strange, are you sure I can’t go with him, just long enough to kick my own ass? Chewing him out on video is just insufficient!”

The sorcerer chuckled. “I’d like a front row seat for that. But sadly, no.” 

“I have a way to contact him, Cap,” Deuce said. “But thanks for the offer.” 

My heart lifted to see them shake hands, but I was focused on my phone again. “You gonna say goodbye, doll?” Bucky asked with a cheeky grin.

“As soon as these folks do,” I said and tapped my phone. 

A hologram burst to life in the air, of Nat and Vision and Sam clustered together at the compound. Deuce whipped out his phone to record their farewells, then panned around to catch us. “I just wish—” he began, when the elevator popped open and Rhodey sprinted out to grab him in a bear hug. 

“Rhodes!” Rhodey yelled into the phone’s lens. “Take care of this dumbass. Mobility issues are no excuse, you hear me soldier?” 

Deuce looked like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. I did a little of both. “I texted Pietro, and Peter, but they’re both in class,” I told him when he turned to me. “They send their love. I’m sorry.”

He stabbed a finger at me. “Don’t start that, you. Nothing to be sorry for. Witchypoo is distracted, but don’t you go getting teary-eyed on me, Lois Lane.”

"Pot, meet kettle." I made myself smile into those unfamiliar-familiar eyes. “You’ll always be in my prayers. If that’s okay, I mean. We never talked about faith, and I don’t know what you think, compared to our Tony—" 

He waved my protests off. “I’ll take all the help I can get, if you think your connection travels that far.”

“It does. I believe my god is the god of the multiverse. It’s us mortals who screw shit up. So, don’t, y’hear?”

With a wobbly grin, Deuce surprised me with a quick embrace. “Stark's lucky to have you," he whispered fiercely, before he pulled away and pointed to Bucky, beside me. “No more apologies out of you either, Terminator. And thanks, all of you. For, for being actual human beings to me.” 

He looked as if he might say more, but the elevator popped open again and Peter raced in. “Mister Deuce!” he yelped and all but levitated across the lab, wrapping his arms around Deuce like a baby monkey clinging to its mama. “I didn’t wanna not say goodbye, you know? May’s busy but she said tell you try not to get into as much trouble there since you don’t have a her to patch you up.”

“I…um…” Deuce’s arms flopped around briefly. “We aren’t…here…” Then with a frantic look around at our amused faces, he gave a fuck-it toss of his hands and gave our spider-kid an awkward return hug.

Strange barked over his shoulder, “It’s set. Enough with the group hugs. Go, or don’t!”

The loop in the air had widened, expanded and rotated. It hung on edge in front of the crowded workspace, human-height now, blocking the view of the room with its writhing, luminous edges beyond which paint-like swirls of glowing colors could be faintly seen. Deuce froze facing it, a fine tremor coursing through his body. Beside him, Tony halted too. “Wormhole?” he asked softly.

“Mm-hm.”

I caught my breath, and leaned against Bucky, knowing the awful experience that both Tonys had shared, and quailing at the thought. “Well,” Tony said after a long moment, clapping Deuce on the shoulder, “this time it’s not taking you away. It’s taking you home.”

Deuce sucked air, gave a jerky nod, and looked over at Tony. As though two bodies with one mind, they moved in unison into a back-slapping embrace. “Watch for that Thanos,” Deuce said when they parted, “and kick him in the ass when you find him.”

“Ditto,” Tony grinned. “You’re not leaving us in your dust forever, either. I’ll figure out how to do this without Doctor Balloon Animal’s mumbo-jumbo in the mix, and then we’ll drop in and visit. Cap can finally kick his own ass.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Deuce pulled away, patted his pocket (checking for his phone, I knew) and squared his shoulders. The ‘Tony Fucking Stark’ armor was almost visible dropping over him. “Bye, everybody. Thanks again.” His eyes flicked upward and he bit his lip. “Nice to…spend some time with you again, JARVIS.”

“As always, sir, it was my honor and pleasure,” JARVIS replied.

“Take care of your brother, Witchypoo,” he went on. Wanda sniffled and gave a brave little nod. “I owe you one, Doc, assuming we ever cross timelines again.” Strange’s cloak flipped one corner up and waved. Deuce paused. “Okay, animated outerwear, that’s…that’s a thing. Good to know. Leaving now, before I convince myself I’m crazy after all. Bye!”

He stepped into the portal and the darkness flowed around him like he was stepping through a dark backdrop curtain. Strange’s gaze did not turn to the man at all, instead focused on glyphs that crawled along the edges of the opening. After a few seconds of dead silence, his stance relaxed. “He’s there. Stable, and safe.” On his word to Wanda, the portal shrank and poofed away.

“So,” Tony said while Strange straightened his lapels, “can you teach me how to do that?”

“Not unless you want to spend at least a decade learning magic.”

“Ah, that would be a hard no. Have to figure it out myself, then." 

While they conducted their usual snark-match, I comforted Wanda, who hadn’t been able to leave her duties long enough to say a proper goodbye. “I hate to think of him all alone, like he’s lost on an island, with just Vision and Colonel Rhodes,” she admitted.

“Not as castaway as you might think.” Tony sounded suspiciously cheery. “Right about now, or close enough depending on how time runs there compared to here, the version of JARVIS I installed on Deuce’s phone should be waking up and greeting him.” 

Overhead, JARVIS made a small noise that I swore was an AI’s satisfied chuckle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gap Strange discovers, that dropped Deuce into the Wordsmith verse, was a side effect of the incidents of the Agents of SHIELD episode The Good Samaritan, though I'm playing with the timeline a bit. This is the top secret mission Fury told Chrissy that Coulson and his team were on.
> 
> It isn't mentioned here, but Tony and Pep put Deuce up in a guest suite on the penthouse floor; they figured that was where he was most comfortable in his tower, but different enough that it wouldn’t spark sad memories with his Pep. He spent most nights while there sitting up talking with JARVIS, squeezing every precious second out of this gift of a little more time with his dearest friend.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky deals with some issues unearthed by Deuce's visit, and his and Chrissy's relationship takes a couple of big steps forward; but will they hold the ground they have gained?
> 
> SMUT INCOMING! :)

After Deuce left (our first human visitor from the multiverse, and not the last; but that’s another story), Bucky grew quieter. He wasn’t withdrawn; he didn’t lash out. He just didn’t talk as much, didn’t interact as much. I no longer found him dropping into my office at any time, bringing me flowers from Brooklyn or inviting me to go for a walk. When I asked Steve, he admitted Bucky was spending most of his time in his suite. “He didn’t say a lot, but from what he did say, it sounded like hearing all the mess that Deuce’s Barnes was mixed up in hit him hard. Said he needed some time to think, and he hasn’t really asked for much since he got here, so I figured we could give him that.” He had a point. I debated with myself, then chose to give Bucky his space, as I had always sworn to him I would do.

That noble pledge lasted until I got a call from one of the garden coordinators, telling me the kids were very worried since they hadn’t seen or heard from Bucky in two weeks. I stormed up to the Brooklyn floor and knocked on Bucky’s suite door. My mind raced, trying to calculate the best approach, how to appeal to him to open up and tell me if something was troubling him, without making him upset or angry or afraid. I ran through half a dozen scenarios in a few seconds, in that way the mind has of compressing so much into so little time when pressed.

Then the door opened, and Bucky stood, barefoot in a t-shirt with a jam stain on the front, and plaid pajama pants, looking tired and a little wary and so beautiful, and, well, every calculation went out of my head, along with most of its other contents. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Instead, I all but pitched forward into his arms, holding on as tightly as though he were wearing an Iron Man suit and about to take off for the skies. “Chris?” he said, faintly at first, as if unsure, then more firmly. “Chris, whassa matter?”

I was slightly horrified to find myself near tears; I should be stronger than this, more able to control myself, but emotions came spilling out from nowhere. _Pull yourself together, Chrissy!_ I told myself sternly; but all that came out was “I missed you.”

For a moment Bucky was still and silent, and I thought I had somehow angered him, till he sighed, “C’mere, doll,” folded his arms around me and drew me inside. 

Steve was right, as it turned out. Thankfully, the problem was not exactly what I had feared, that Bucky was beating himself up over things the other Bucky had done. The thing was, Bucky couldn’t put into words very well just what the problem _was_. “I been actin’ like I had this licked, but those trigger words are still up there. Dr. Rausch doesn’t know how to get ‘em out; all she knows to do is help me be strong enough, I hope, to hold ‘em off. Deuce said his Barnes ended up locked away, so I think, maybe that’s where I'll end up--"

“No, he did not, mister. If you recall, he said his Bucky was in Wakanda getting treated. We could try that—we can ask T’Challa. You’ve met, so maybe he’ll have an idea if they could help.”

“May be,” he said, but looked skeptical. “That ain’t all, though. Ever since they sent Deuce home, I’m…sometimes I look around, an’ a few minutes have passed, or more than a few, an’ I got no idea what I just did. Like, I was here, but I wasn’t. I dunno what it is, an’ I’m scared of tellin’ Dr. Rausch. But I don’t wanna hurt nobody, so I figured, best stay put an’ try to piece it together.”

“Oh, Bucky,” I sighed, sitting across his lap on his couch. “I’m no medical professional, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say you’re just stressing yourself out.” I leaned against his chest and planted a couple of soft kisses along his jaw. “See, I can feel tension right there.” My lips addressed the issue with a bit more massage. “We need to do a little something to relieve that.”

“We do, do we?” His voice was a tender, teasing rumble. “Whatcha got in mind?”

“Mmm, between our two right decent brains, I reckon we can come up with something.” I slid one hand behind his head and skritched my nails lightly along his scalp. The other hand dropped beside my hip and kneaded at his thigh like a kitten making biscuits, while I tried not to think how much I really wanted those thighs between mine. His flesh arm tightened around my waist and he turned his head for his mouth to meet mine, while metal fingers played above my knees, trying to coax my legs open—until he started, broke the kiss and glared down at his lap with a scowl. 

I followed his gaze to the swelling in his crotch and smothered a delighted squeal. “Well looky here, a rare sighting of the Brooklyn trouser snake.”

Bucky stared, sputtered a bit, and then started to laugh. “You dopey broad.”

I giggled a little with him, then took his face gently in my hands. “You were afraid it wasn’t gonna work anymore, weren’t you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Shoulda known, no way Julius was gonna resist you.”

“Julius? You named him Julius?”

“Well, yeah. Julius Seize-her.”

I collapsed against him in helpless laughter for a good couple of minutes. “Now see,” I managed at last, “this is what—damn, darlin’, I’ve been missing you so much! Your gorgeous face, your sweet patient heart, your ridiculous sense of humor, your rockin’ nerdy brain…that thing you do with your hand…”

He held up the aforementioned metal limb and activated vibrate mode. “This thing?”

I shivered. “Yeah. That thing.” I leaned in and flicked the tip of my tongue across a couple of his fingertips, relishing the weird exciting feel of the pulsation close to my lower lip. “I’m looking forward to the time you can trust me to return the favor.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust, doll,” he breathed, his eyes wider and darker than I’d ever seen them. “You know that. It’s me.”

“Mmm. Damn shame I trust you more than you do, sweetie.” I drew one knee up and straddled his lap, but did not press farther. If he wanted to move me again, that was fine; if he wanted to liquify my brains with that hand, he had easy access; and if he had second thoughts about his level of self-control…I let the back of my hand rest lightly against his crotch, taunted by the warmth radiating through his pants, and met his eyes with a smile. His metal hand curled around the back of my neck and drew me in for more kissing, but when I started to move my hand, his flesh hand closed around my wrist and turned it, pressing my palm gently but firmly against him. I tilted my head at him in puzzlement. “Bucky, I’m not pushing.”

“I know. That’s why I wanna try.” 

Well, as if I was going to turn that offer down. I licked my palm, reached in and took Julius in hand, urging Bucky to tell me how he liked it. Our kisses grew sloppy until he broke away altogether and threw his head back. I laid wet smooches down his neck and reveled in his low moans of my name, as turned on by his responses to my work as I was when he came at me with that mechanical marvel of his. “That’s it, darlin’,” I purred. “You’re likin’ it, aren’t you, come one, show me how much, come for me, Bucky, sweetheart—”

It was as if he needed to hear me say it, because he cut me off with a holler and gushed all over my busy hand. I just used it as extra lube, working him steadily until he went practically limp under me (not just his cock, his whole body). My first impulse was to wipe him, and my hand, clean with his t-shirt, but then on second thought, I waited till his eyes fluttered open, looking totally done in and relaxed, his ears and cheeks and neck pink and his lips moist and full. Then I gave my most evil grin and began to lick my sticky fingers clean, and he groaned almost as loud as he had with his release. “ _Dammit_ , doll.”

After I smirked my way through my own cleanup, I had to help him into his bathroom while he complained I had rendered his legs non-operational. This pleased me to no end, needless to say, although I pointed out he really didn’t have to phrase it like I had thwarted a top secret mission. He hosed himself off and staggered out, flopped onto his bed and hauled me down to lie beside him. “You were right,” he said after we cuddled a few minutes. “I wasn’t sure it was gonna work anymore. It hadn’t been. I know, I tried.”

“You tried?” I pretended to be outraged. “And you didn’t invite me?”

“Well…Steve drew me a picture of ya, an’, that way, I wasn’t gonna get embarrassed, or get your hopes up, if nothin' worked. But it worked this time, an' you didn’t get none, doll!”

“Oh, I got plenty, don’t you worry. Now where is this picture?”

It was a sketch in colored pencils, of me in my favorite pink business skirt suit, a sheaf of papers in my hands, as if about to walk into a press briefing. “Reminds me of the day you went to bat for me in front of all those reporters,” Bucky confided. “I…had eyes for ya, from day one, I think, but I think I realized I was gone for you that day.”

I laughed and ducked my head, definitely not wanting to say I had had eyes for him since sixth grade. Who needed to make it weird? “I’m pretty much gone for you too, mister.”

We exchanged some slow, full kisses, until Bucky shifted back, his eyes alight. “I feel—I dunno, peppy. Can we go out? Do somethin’? Like…go dance, maybe.” 

I tried not to swallow my tongue, shock and delight rattling my brain around in my skull. “Sure. Sure, we can do that.”

A quick consultation on my phone revealed a variety of options. Bucky nixed the Bulgarian bar with the vodka ice cave (boy, did he nix it. He gave me the best impression of Pepper’s The Look I had ever seen on anybody’s face other than Pepper's), but a retro supper club not far from the tower, with good reviews and swing dancing lessons, made him perk up. “You an’ Tony an’ Natalia been teachin’ me your dances, I’ll teach you mine. Hey JARVIS, can ya get us in there, buddy?”

It felt like a first date, to say nothing of the, shall we say, unusual aspects of our lives, apart and together, and it was pure joy. Bucky was in his element, and shepherded me through a little slice of the world he had grown up in, as we ate and drank and danced till well after midnight. “This is one of the few times I’m really likin’ bein’ a super soldier,” he murmured in my ear on the small dance floor in front of the band. “I can carry on all night. You can’t, though.”

“Just watch me,” I retorted, and while yeah, he did outlast me, I held my own. 

When we finally made our way home, the tower elevator doors opened onto the Brooklyn floor, and we were greeted by the sight of Steve, big arms folded, giving his best Disapproving Captain America face. “And where have you two been?” he asked, like he was a dad and we were teenagers home late from prom.

“Dancing,” I informed him loftily. “We’d’ve invited you, but three’s a crowd and Bucky says you can’t dance for shit anyway.” Turning back to my date, I threw my arms around his neck. “Tonight was amazing. Hell, today was amazing. I love—I loved it,” I amended. Enough brain cells were working that I wasn’t sure it was the right moment for a confession of love, as much as I thought it just might be true. “Let’s go again. We can go back there, or someplace else. Not the Bulgarian ice cave, I promise, cross my heart.” Out the corner of my eye, I spied Steve actually shiver himself at the thought.

“We will, doll.” Bucky looked like he was still raring to go, a little disbelieving, and a lot happy.

Our next foray out was a few nights later, to a mom-and-pop blue-collar bar in Brooklyn, a recommendation Bucky had picked up from a fellow gardener on his first trip back. That night, we almost didn’t go back to the tower; he was greeted as something of a celebrity, and half a dozen folks offered to put us up in their spare room or on their fold-out couch when the hour grew late. Bucky assured them I could get us home safely, and in my secret heart, I loved him even more for according me agency over my own self, and him to boot.

Things were going great, I thought. Bucky was working, playing, not complaining or fretting. I thought we were inching closer to that time when he would feel secure enough in his own skin, and have enough faith in himself, to take me to bed and make love to me fully, and I could not wait. Of course, that was when everything went to hell in a saddlebag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was a hint at possible tales of more multiverse shenanigans...another Tony or Tony-adjacent appearance in a future short, maybe?
> 
> BTW thank you all for your great comments! I wasn't sure anybody would be interested in Deuce but everybody seems to have loved his interactions with our team, and I hope once the Wordsmith main storyline is over, to write at least a short coda where some Avengers use their new tech to go looking for their friend and see how he handled his verse's mess. (Deuce's verse was totally MCU canon before he dropped in, but it's a good bet that the intel he took back, plus his JARVIS, helped change things for the better!)
> 
> The clubs mentioned in this chapter do exist!  
> https://swing46.com/  
> http://thecallboxlounge.com/
> 
> And even the Bulgarian bar with the ice cave. I suspect that stirred up too many bad memories for Bucky. http://mehanatanyc.com/


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Chrissy continue to explore the club scene. Chrissy has a run-in with some unplesasant Russians, and is rescued by a surprising newcomer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long chapter! I'm going to be out of pocket the next few days, so I'm giving y'all a bit more content to hold you until the middle of next week.
> 
> Strap in and hang on--a shock or two are coming up.

When Bucky went nosing around Google and discovered a trend of clubs in old storefronts, utilizing original signage and equipment for themes and ambiance, he took to the idea immediately and wanted to see every single one in town. Several were tucked away on the Lower East Side; we spent one night dancing to a decent DJ and splitting a giant plate of nachos (just a snack for Bucky) at a club inside an old piano store. 

Another bar was an actual speakeasy dating back to the 1920s; the bartender recognized Bucky and was beside herself. She called for the owner, who was equally thrilled to meet their first ever patron who was alive when the place was originally open during Prohibition. Bucky loved it too. “This is the way they did it back in the old days,” he grinned while we sipped cocktails from vintage teacups.

“You could see those old days,” I told him. “Has Tony told you about his virtual reality project?” He looked bemused. “Guess that’s no,” I said and explained BARF, as well as I understood it.

He was intrigued, but not raring to go. “I might ask him about it sometime, but really, I can let that go. I’m liking this new world I’m in.” The glint in his eyes turned my heart to mush, to say nothing of what it did to other parts of my anatomy.

Tony did explain BARF, much better than I could, and offered it up to Bucky for nearly any use he wanted, with almost as much glee as he had demonstrated when Bucky told him we were actually going out. Pepper was equally delighted. Steve was the most nervous of our unconventional household about the prospect, but he admitted he was just worried about Bucky taking on too much at one time. I promised him I wasn’t pushing.

On our next night out, Bucky was curious about a club in Gramercy, inside an old beauty parlor. Reviews called it a hipster joint, so I told Bucky to put his hair up in his man bun. Why’d I do that? He demanded to know what a hipster was, and when I returned to his place from mine, showered and dressed, he had acquired a pair of black-rimmed glasses from Lord knew where, wiggled into the tightest jeans he owned, and stolen Steve’s leather jacket. He managed to look hilarious and adorable at the same time. Pictures had to be taken. I resolved secretly to post them on my personal Instagram later.

The club was small and packed. True to the reviews, there were hipsters aplenty, but there were also some business types, and a couple of Goths who appeared to have wandered in by mistake and decided to stay (they were busily sipping drinks and getting their nails done) 

The place got more jammed by the minute, and for all Bucky’s initial glee at the prospect of actually blending in with a crowd, his mood shifted with disconcerting speed. He made a wide detour around the old-fashioned hair dryer seats along one wall, and glared at a clump of shifty-looking guys at the bar. The dance floor was tiny and the DJ unremarkable, nothing we couldn’t have done at home in Nat’s studio with JARVIS. With a private sigh, I pondered getting a manicure, but didn’t want to leave Bucky at loose ends.

“How much longer do you want to stay?” I finally asked him. He didn’t answer, his gaze far away and his feet shifting as though on autopilot. When I goosed him, his head snapped around so fast his fake glasses went flying. Fortunately, they didn’t hit anyone, but the moment’s razor-sharp glare turned his eyes to steel and reminded me he was still one of the most dangerous men on the planet. I refused to flinch, and an instant later he melted into my arms. “Hey, are you okay?” I asked, suddenly alarmed when I felt a fine tremor shiver through his body.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, I just—” He shook his head, his eyes troubled when they met mine again. “You mind if we scram? We could find another place—there’s one a coupla blocks up, hidden behind a pawn shop, I read about.”

His goofy obsession was so cute. “Maybe. I’m getting tired though. We can discuss it outside where it’s quiet.” Bucky went after our jackets, and I grabbed my last empty glass where I had set it down on a ledge and wended my way to the bar to return it. I’m considerate like that. 

The shifty guys were standing around, drinking vodka and laughing too loud and occasionally hollering at somebody in what sounded like Russian. That, I realized, was probably what Bucky’s super soldier hearing had picked up when we first entered, and thus the cause of the hairy eyeball he gave them. I kept them in my peripheral vision while I set the glass on the bar, but when I turned, one skinny blond guy was in my face. “Pretty lady shouldn’t be out here alone!” he leered in accented English.

“I’m not,” I said with a smile I hoped took a little inspiration from the one Pepper gives right before she verbally shanks some business rival. “I appreciate your concern though. That’s nice of you.”

“Oh no,” the blond scoffed, “whoever you are with does not deserve you, sending you to run his errands. You should be seated like royalty, with men at your beck and call. Fortunately—” he made a grand gesture with one hand and suddenly his buddies were moving in. There were three of them, one short, one bald, the third plain (he looked the most like a spy, the one nobody would notice otherwise). All four of them were wiry, probably plenty strong. “My friends and I, we would be happy to be at your beck and call for the night. And then, you, perhaps, can return the favor?”

I stood my ground and even managed a laugh. “I am here,” I explained patiently, “with my boyfriend. Believe me when I say all of you put together can’t measure up to him, in any way. We are tired, and heading home, and I really am not in the mood to spend three hours talking to the management and the police after he sends you four clowns to the hospital. So please, for your own good, back the fuck off.”

The blond said something to his buddies in Russian. They laughed, and I rolled my eyes and reached behind me for my glass, trying to ignore the fear tightening in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to have to break it and cut these dumbasses, but I wouldn’t hesitate to make a scene if they kept coming on strong. The narrow walls felt like they were closing in on me; the air grew even hotter and sent sweat trickling down my spine. Even Bucky couldn’t make his way through this crowd in a hurry—

Then, as suddenly and soundlessly as though he had simply phased through every obstacle, he was there beside me. He didn’t say anything at first. I glanced over and up at him with a pleased smile, that wavered a bit at the look on his face. It was an expression I had never seen on him, set, merciless, cold as granite. His hair was down, and he stood very still, only his eyes moving. _The Winter Soldier_ , I thought. _This is what his victims saw, before they died._

Being on the wrong end of that look could probably incapacitate, just on its own. It definitely seemed to be working on my opponents. For all that Tony insists words are my superpower, this didn’t feel like a moment when they were needed. I just smiled up at Bucky, then turned back toward the foursome and let my smile widen until I was beaming, saying _see what I mean?_ without having to open my mouth.

The cocky airs faded from three faces; only the one who had first accosted me clung to any leftover daring. “I think four could give you—” he began.

Bucky cut him off, in a low and harsh voice that carried nonetheless over the noise around us. “ _Nogami vperod.”_

The short guy paled and backed up a step. His bald buddy drew a harsh breath. Never looking away from them, Bucky lifted his hands and limbered his fingers. That was when I noticed the silicone false skin over his left arm was torn, hanging in strips from his forearm and exposing the glint of metal. 

_“Zimniy Soldat,”_ the plain guy breathed, with a look like he was torn between awe and pants-peeing terror. That resulted in a brief argument with the blond, while baldie joined his shrimpy buddy in backing toward the door. 

Blondie scowled, and finally snapped, “Okay, okay.” Spy-guy dragged him toward the exit, jabbering at Bucky in Russian until he got his squad out.

I let out a long breath and half-slumped against the solid mass by my side. Damsel in distress is not my chosen role, but for once I was thankful to have a man there to back me up. A slightly manic giggle escaped my throat. “Damn, their faces were a sight to behold, weren’t they? Blondie will stay mad, but spy-guy’ll probably drink for two weeks on stories about how he faced down the fearsome Winter Soldier.” I rose on my toes to give a grateful kiss, then paused. Bucky’s head turned toward me, but his face was still impassive. His eyes weren’t as icy, but something still wasn’t quite right, about the way he looked at me and tilted his head as if sizing me up. “Do you need to sit down?” He shook his head, once, still not speaking. “Did you get—of course you didn’t, you had to come haul my ass out of the trick barrel. Wait here, I’ll be right back and we can leave, okay?”

I shoved through the mass of people, grabbed our jackets and fought my way back. Bucky had not budged; I wasn’t sure he had moved a muscle. When I caught hold of his hand and headed for the door, though, he followed readily enough. We stepped outside, and an involuntary little whine of appreciation escaped me at the cool air hitting my desperately overheated skin. I let myself relax into my lover’s arms, or rather, against his body, since he still made no move to reach for me. That made me tense and straighten. A quick look around revealed nobody lurking that I could see—Bucky would be far better at picking up on that, especially at night, but for now it sure looked as if my tormentors had slunk away like lesser predators when an apex appeared. 

I frowned up at him, and he looked down at me with that same strange, appraising air. Suddenly I was reminded of two guys I’d known in high school, identical twins, and how they loved to switch places and fool teachers; they could never fool their circle of friends, though, because we had learned the subtle tells that distinguished them. Something like that was going on here. The man before me stood differently, held himself differently, regarded me differently. “Bucky?” He looked away, down at his arm and the shredded faux-skin. Barely believing I dared it, I took his cheek in my hand and urged his face around. “Or not?”

When he spoke, his words were few and clipped, and his voice carried a whiff of a sharp European accent, none of the lazy teasing Brooklyn I knew so well. “Not,” he said simply.

Fuck. “Okay. Okay. Not Bucky. You’re the…the Winter Soldier, then, now, for real.” He inclined his head a trace. I probably shouldn’t have kept hold of his face, but he didn’t seem inclined to rip my hand off my arm, and the touch helped me to stay grounded and not panic. “Why are you here? Where’s Bucky? Is he okay?”

“The Asset is unharmed. The Russian agent and his comrades alarmed him, and the salon equipment reminded him of the Chair HYDRA used to erase his memories after missions. So he was already compromised; then you were menaced, and I emerged fully, to shield him and take over his mission.”

“Mission?”

“To protect you,” he said simply, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. _Here we go again with whatever the male equivalent of a mother hen is, I guess,_ I thought. 

Steve had said Bucky always protected him when he was small and scrawny, though, so maybe it wasn’t a gender thing. Besides, I really couldn’t have taken four Russian guys on in a fight, even if they were skinny. I told myself I needed to get past this kneejerk reaction to the plain truth that sometimes I could use defending. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m guessing you aren’t interested in continuing a night of clubbing, so can you trust me to get us home safely?”

For a long moment, he did not reply, his eyes moving over my face as if we had never met—and I supposed we hadn’t. “Home,” he said at last, as if he had never heard the word. “Home is good.”

“Home sure is good.” I slipped my arm through his stiff one and started the short walk to the Union Square subway station. The stranger currently inhabiting Bucky’s body even walked differently, light on his feet like the predator I had compared him to earlier, with a sureness at once deadly and enticing. “You aren’t Bucky, so what would you like for me to call you?” I tabled my other questions, to focus on keeping him and myself calm. “Natasha and the twins called you—well, Bucky—oh shit, _y’all_ —Zima, but if that brings back bad memories, say so.”

“No. HYDRA called…us…Soldat, when they controlled us, and only rarely Zima. The Asset freed us. I will answer to Zima.”

“Mm-hm. There’s a word that’s supposed to shut y’all down. Would it drive you out, or back where you were?”

“It would not. The blackout word has power only after trigger words. I…I emerged of my own will.” He sounded quietly amazed. 

“Yes, you did. I wouldn’t use it now anyway. Can’t you see me trying to carry you back to the tower?” 

We boarded the train, thankfully not crowded this late. His eyes darted toward me, as if not sure how to respond to humor, then down where my arm was still linked with his. “You seem unafraid of me.”

“You’ve been in there all along, right? And you’ve never done me any harm, so, no reason why you should start now, especially since you said you came out to protect me.”

Slowly, he nodded. “The Asset…values you, in a way unlike any other.”

“And you don’t?” I teased, then caught myself. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me. We hardly know each other.”

“I know you. I see you. I watch you. You value him greatly, or else you are the best liar we have known. And we know the Black Widow, remember.”

The sly jape caught me completely off guard, and I could not keep from hiding my face in his shoulder and surrendering to a bout of giggles. “The Winter Soldier does have a sense of humor!” I whispered fiercely. “Who would have guessed?” A hint of a smile, furtive, but definitely there, curled the corner of his mouth.

Grand Central Station, large and echoey and bustling even near midnight, made Zima tense up and stride like he was looking for somebody to kill. I clung to his arm, talked quietly to him, and got him out onto the street to walk around the block to the tower’s private entrance. “I should not be here,” he fretted as the elevator sped upward. “This is for Avengers.”

“It’s for Avengers, and for those they welcome. And they—we—welcome you, and Bucky,” I assured him. “Now,” I went on when we entered his suite. “You’re home. Do you think you can step back and let Bucky return?”

He nodded curtly. ”I…” I lifted my eyebrows, but his voice trailed off. Were we going to have to play Twenty Questions here? Zima hadn’t had much practice at using his words. It was a surprise when he took my hands in his, his fingers fumbling in a way quite unlike the most lethal assassin in history. “I…would benefit from…from physical contact, before I withdraw.”

I swallowed back sudden tears. “Oh—oh, of course.” The odds were pretty good that Zima, since his creation by HYDRA’s filthy experiments, had never, ever, been touched with kindness. I threw my arms around him, and felt his hands hover around my shoulders, not knowing what to do, before they drew me to him. We stood there for who knew how long: long enough, certainly, for me to start planning how to handle the inevitable freakout Bucky was going to have when he regained control of his body. “I’m always here, Zima,” I murmured when he finally stepped back. “I’m glad I got to meet you. You’re a part of Bucky, so I…I feel about you the way I feel about him. Just remember that, and don’t be scared, okay?” 

He looked briefly confounded, then took my hand in his metal one. “The Asset loves you,” he said, “as do I.” 

While I was trying to absorb that novel piece of intel, he took a sharp breath and blinked several times in rapid succession, before his shoulders dropped, all their upright military tension gone in a flash. “Chris?” Bucky’s eyes were on mine, huge and his again, and scared shitless. “What the fuck happened?”

“I, um, got to meet your roommate,” I offered, “the Winter Soldier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GULP. 0_0
> 
> Here are the first 2 bars Bucky and Chrissy went to:  
>  https://www.pianosnyc.com/   
> http://www.backroomnyc.com/ 
> 
> Here's where the incident took place:   
>  http://thebeautybar.com/home-new-york/  
> and here's where Bucky wanted to go, before the punks and Zima interrupted the evening:  
>  https://beautyandessex.com/
> 
> What Zima said to the Russians translates as ‘feet forward’. It’s a Russian saying that refers to the way a dead body is carried out of a place. In other words, get out before you are removed. The unremarkable guy sees the arm, recognizes it and says ‘Winter Soldier’ in Russian, of course. Zima says Bucky made one of that group as an actual agent, and I think Chrissy was right and it was that guy.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy and Bucky go to the team for help in figuring out how to deal with Zima.

As expected, Bucky had what in the South we call a shit hemorrhage. Mostly, he was enraged that I had not only not called every damn Avenger, retired Avenger, and Avenger-adjacent ground-level hero to assist in subduing his alter ego, but I hadn’t even called Happy to break out a Stark car and come get us. “You got on the fuckin’ subway with the fuckin’ Winter Soldier?!?”

“Yep,” I tossed over my shoulder while pouring us some ice water. “He’s sweet. Touch-starved as hell, bless him. He also thinks Nat is the best liar y’all ever met, said something in the bar reminded you of goddamn HYDRA’s torture rig, wants me to call him Zima, and has a really hot accent.”

My best Tony-inspired efforts to meet the crisis with humor did not go over well, but once Bucky calmed down, we had decisions to make. “If he popped out once, he can do it again, any time,” Bucky fretted while he stomped around his apartment. “Team’s gotta know, doll. We can’t fuck around with this alone.”

He was right, and that was not going to be any more enjoyable an experience than telling him had been. I offered to take that bullet and spare him the ordeal, but one disbelieving glare put the quietus on that. So we gathered the tower residents, and told them together. Tony’s eyes narrowed, before he erupted into a whirlwind of activity, calling for JARVIS to scour every database on the planet, again, for information about breaking brainwashing blocks, collecting every scrap of data to huddle with Dr. Rausch. Steve’s Disapproving Captain America look advanced to a whole other level, and I knew I deserved it. While he fussed over Bucky, Pepper took me aside and pumped me for the smallest details, to help us deal with Zima should he emerge again. “It sounds like Bucky was already in an emotionally fragile state,” she said sympathetically, “and then when he saw those guys harassing you—”

“The shit hit the fan,” I finished. If I’d just listened to Steve, hadn’t been so cocky and naïve and thought everything was going along swimmingly, this might not have happened, I thought. Then again, it might have just been a matter of time; but Bucky vanished into his lair and refused to see anybody, most emphatically me, so sadly, I figured he saw me at fault too.

Dr. Rausch made an all-day house call, spending hours with Bucky, then sitting down to question me. She was the only one to whom I told everything. Zima’s last words to me had felt like an intimacy, like he was revealing a secret he and Bucky shared. Nobody else needed to know it, and Bucky was just going to be angry his alter ego had spilled, assuming it was true. Thus, other than Zima himself, who had not reappeared, and JARVIS, who could keep a confidence better than every spy I knew rolled into one, only I knew. Dr. Rausch needed to know, though. 

“I'm actually on firmer ground, professionally speaking, now, dealing with dissociative personality disorder, than in trying to remove the mind-control triggers,” she admitted. “I've treated patients with that diagnosis before. James has mentioned having brief periods of lost time; I was concerned they were absence seizures, but it’s more reasonable to assume those were moments Zima was closer to the surface.”

“I…I feel like some of this could be my fault,” I confessed, “like maybe our relationship moving forward, and him taking on more social roles, was more stress than he could handle.”

“I don’t see that, Christine. It’s important that we know Zima is there, and capable of interacting with others, and knows about and is concerned about James—and you. Knowing that both James and Zima agree on their feelings toward you is a great positive too. Not that this whole thing isn’t a major concern, obviously. The next time James feels threatened, or believes somebody dear to him is, Zima might take over again, whether there’s an actual threat or not. I tried to summon Zima and talk to him, but he didn’t bite. That just adds another layer of complexity to his case, and more of a burden to his psyche.”

I threw myself into work, again, this time to drown out the loud silence around me. Steve was with Bucky most of the time, Tony was giving himself a crash course in psychiatry, Pepper was running SI without the man who had become a good right hand to her, and none of them were talking to me much. It was a shock after a few days when Steve turned up at my office door. “I need your help, Chris,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you and Buck said. Dr. Erskine, who developed the original serum I got, told me beforehand that it was meant to amplify the user’s qualities, good or bad, physical and mental.” Remembering Bucky telling me that, I nodded. “Bucky grew up the man of his house, takin’ care of his ma and sisters, and then me too. That’s just part of his nature. So when he’s no longer being ordered, tortured and threatened into being an assassin, of course he would revert back to bein’ the guardian. I can’t get that through his thick skull though. He thinks the Soldier’s gonna hurt us, hurt you—he won’t even talk to me no more, or come out of his rooms.”

“Is that why?” I gulped. “I thought he blamed me. Frankly, I figured you did too.”

I thought I had gotten the Captain America Is Disappointed in You look before. I was a fool. Steve looked like I had stolen his last gram of hope and faith and left a heel piece of moldy bread in its place. “Well, that explains a lot. C’mon, you gotta tell him,” he said and grabbed my hand. Before I knew what was going down, we were on the elevator, getting off on the Brooklyn floor, and Steve was banging on Bucky’s suite door hard enough to leave dings. “BUCK! Open this fuckin’ door before I kick it in!”

“You can’t, punk,” Bucky retorted faintly from inside. “Super-soldier-proof, remember?”

“JARVIS!” Steve almost wailed.

“I’m sorry, Captain Rogers, but Sergeant Barnes has requested privacy, and so long as he does not pose a threat to himself or others, I am bound to honor his wishes.”

I reclaimed my hand from Steve's, and knocked. “Bucky? I need to talk to you, sweetie. I, um, I lied, before, kinda. I didn’t tell you everything about Zima, and if I’m understanding the current situation right, it might be more relevant than I thought. Now, I can talk through the door, or you can open it, your call. I’m not embarrassed about talking in front of Steve, if you don’t mind him hearing personal stuff.”

With a click, the door opened. Bucky wasn’t standing beyond it, so I guessed he had asked JARVIS to unlock it. We walked in and looked around the living room; it was vacant, though the drawing of me lay on the table atop a pile of books and magazines. I said a quiet word of compliment to Steve, and moved on. “Come out wherever you are,” I called.

“Holy shit,” Steve said from behind me. “I am an idiot.” I turned and found him holding his sketch in one hand, staring down at the stack of reading material. When he looked up at me, his mouth was half open and his eyes were huge, as though he had just had a revelation. He tapped the top magazine and said one word. “Wakanda.”

I pondered, then squeaked as his meaning sunk in. “Bucky and I were talking about them, before this happened. But Deuce never said his Barnes had different personalities; they were just trying to get the trigger words out.”

“That’s what scared me first.” Another voice came from behind me; Bucky hovered uncertainly in the doorway that led out onto his balcony. “I heard those Russians in the bar, an’ all I could hear in my head was that nert Zemo tryin’ to read th’ triggers—he didn’t pronounce ‘em right, y’know it? You’da thought a Sokovian’d know how to say Russian words right, the twins do, but I think that’s maybe how come I could fight back an’ not hurt you or Tony, Steve.”

“That being the case, then,” I said, “if the triggers can be deactivated, that would take one of the biggest causes of anxiety out of your life. Zima might just merge with you then; he wouldn’t have as much need or drive to protect you or me, which is all he was doing!”

With a firm nod, Steve flipped out his phone and began to text. “K,” Bucky said more quietly, “he’s distracted. What’d you lie to me about?”

“Well, sin of omission, more like.” There was no easy way to go at this. “Zima said you love me and he does too. Granted, if I’m reading him right, he’s desperately lonely, and he might think he’s ‘in love’ with me just because he thinks you are; but I don’t think so.” Might as well blurt it all out. “I thought you didn’t want to see me because you blamed me for Zima coming out—”

“No. Hell no,” Bucky almost snarled and took a long stride toward me, then halted and visibly fought back a grimace. 

“So Steve tells me,” I returned, not budging. He might be afraid of himself again, but by God, I wasn’t. “If you’re scared Zima would act out, I can’t speak to that, but I can tell you with complete certainty that I don’t believe there’s any damn way he would ever hurt me.”

Bucky’s head bobbed, slowly. “He loves you, an’ he told you I did too, huh? Blabbermouth.”

“You...do, then?” The glare he hurled my way was all the answer I needed. “What a coincidence. It just so happens I love you too.”

I halfway expected his head to tilt like a perplexed little dog. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” For all the turmoil in our world, at this moment, it took all I had not to laugh.

All I had wasn’t quite enough, when a grin bright as all the stars in heaven split his sweet face. “Huh. That’s swell.”

A throat clearing behind me was the only thing that kept me from launching myself across the room and into Bucky’s arms. “I interruptin’ somethin’?” Steve drawled.

“’Bout like always,” Bucky retorted, his eyes holding mine fast. “Ya got a good word?”

“Yeah. Tony’s ahead of us, as usual. He talked to T’Challa, who talked to his sister, who apparently runs the whole shootin’ match science-wise in Wakanda. Tony was about to check in with him anyhow—” Steve was cut short by the buzz of his phone, and he glanced down at the screen with a look of surprise, then texted back a reply that seemed to take forever, even though I had taught him to text myself and knew good and well that it was barely seconds. 

One side of me warmed, and I could tell without looking away that Bucky had taken those last brave steps to stand beside me. “Well?” he demanded.

“T’Challa’s sister says bring you on. She thinks she can help you.”


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky journeys to Wakanda.

“Chris?” Bucky’s soft rumbling voice roused me from a doze. “Tony says we’re ‘bout to hit the west coast of Africa. Figured you’d wanna see all you could.”

I slouched against his broad chest, my head on his shoulder. We had left New York shortly after dark, to fly through the night and reach Wakanda by mid-morning their time. That gave Shuri and her team ample time to prepare for Bucky’s arrival. Unfortunately, while necessary, that meant our bodies thought it was the middle of the night, despite the bright sunshine outside the quinjet’s windows. I sat up, scratched my neck, and squinted around the jet’s interior. Sitting across the way, Steve’s small smile was tired but game. From the pilot’s seat up front, I could hear Tony talking—the Wakandans’ security was impressive; they had even had to give him encrypted codes to their dedicated radio frequencies, so they could communicate en route.

When my squint turned toward Bucky, he grinned, his blue eyes soft. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sack out on you. Literally, _on_ you. Please tell me I didn’t drool. Did you snooze?”

“S’ok, doll. No, I didn’t. Me an’ Stevie talked a lot. I’m good though. Figure I’ll be sleepin’ enough in the near future, if Tony’s right.” I frowned, lost. “He says this gal Shuri can use her computers to scan my brain, an’ then try tactics on the scan till she figures how to get the triggers outta there, without actually havin’ to mess in my head itself. They got cryo there, she says, so I’m thinkin’ the safest approach is to put me under.”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. He looked so calm, even carefree. “But—Bucky, you’ve had to do that—”

“I was _forced_ to do it,” he corrected me gently. “This time’s ‘cause I _want_ to. Zima may love you and wanna protect you, but I can’t vouch for what he might do to people he doesn’t know, and I’m not about to feel responsible for that.” His eyes flicked toward the cockpit, and I knew who he was thinking of. “It’s not like it’s gonna hurt. When HYDRA chucked me in, that was rough, but once I was under,” he spread his hands with another brave little smile, “didn’t feel a thing. Sounds like she knows what she’s doin’. You guys trust her, and I trust you.”

I was not about to break down and bawl, so I forced a small smile of my own. “You’re tough,” I said and kissed him quickly, then clambered to my feet. After a second to get my balance, I made my way aft to the head and freshened up. With my nose powdered, a comb dragged through my hair and my ponytail back in place, I stepped back into the main cabin. Bucky and Steve were side by side now, talking quietly, so I went forward. 

Tony was tapping screens on the control panel, grumbling and swearing under his breath. “Problem?” I asked.

“Nah, Wakandan ground control’s walking me through resetting the flight transponder so their tech can recognize it. They’ll have to bring me in through their force-shield, or cloaking field, or whatever. Got to remember to put it back on standard StarkTech setting when we hit the ground, though. T’Challa made that big speech at the UN and revealed they apparently have tech to make Bill Gates slobber, but they don’t want to have to start defending their borders against every scruffy-looking nerf herder trying to make an unprecedented score.” Abruptly he switched to French to carry on a mildly contentious exchange with an air traffic controller; a look at the map and readouts onscreen showed we were passing over Algeria. Tony finished, sighed and fiddled with the controls, and I felt the jet shift and slow. “Overland now, got to gear down.”

“What?” Steve yelled in protest from behind us. “We need to get there as fast as we can, Tony. This part of the world isn’t that densely populated, surely a sonic boom or two won’t upset too many people.”

“Shaddup, punk!” Bucky’s reply was punctuated by a smack, probably upside of Steve’s head. “I’ve made it this long, not much chance I’m gonna flip my wig in the next coupla hours. Not unless you piss me off real bad. Plus, there are wild animals down there. You don’t care about the elephants and the lions, the noise pollution?…What? I read! Just because we never could afford to go to the Bronx Zoo, there’s more stuff in the world than mice an’ squirrels.”

While they bickered, I sat in the co-pilot’s seat and listened. Tony glanced over at me. “You’re here. Trouble in paradise?”

“Huh? No. I just figured Bucky might want time with his bro.”

For the first time, I’d made a comment about relationships that had Tony Stark looking at me like _I_ was the crazy one. “Maybe I’m off base here, but I’d venture a guess he’d rather be spending time with you. I mean, don’t do the nasty back there, it’d scar Cap for life; but seriously cornbread, if it was me about to go into cold storage for an undetermined amount of time, I’d be stuck to Pep like low-outgassing space adhesive.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I love your company, but get your ass back there.”

“Best brother ever,” I said, hopped up and kissed his cheek.

"Of course," he snarked. " _C'est moi_."

Bucky snorted and pulled me down into his lap. “Keep ‘im straight while I’m indisposed, okay? That one too,” he added with a fake glare at Steve.

“Like that’s gonna happen,” I grinned, determined to keep his spirits up. We gazed out the jet windows at the flatlands below, thrilled when we spotted herds of antelope and even giraffes (Tony insisted giraffes were called a ‘tower’, not a herd). Eventually, the land grew rugged and craggy, and mountains appeared ahead. The quinjet slowed even more, low and slow enough that flocks of sheep and goats could be seen dashing along paths and across pastures, their tenders looking up in surprise. It was a beautiful rustic land, but I didn’t see any trace of the much-publicized technological wizardry.

Showing off every inch of his flying skill, Tony piloted us into the mountain range, following the directions he heard over his headset. We had only a second to prepare when he said “Fly _into_ that mountain?” before he did just that. I strangled a yelp, and Bucky’s arms closed around me, as we drove straight toward what looked like a solid wall of stone, vegetation and dirt—but the wall split around us in a shimmer like diving into a swimming hole, and when it passed, the view was nothing short of breathtaking.

A city spread below, extending from a broad river across its valley. The buildings were like none I had ever seen, at once modern and ancient-looking, and that theme carried forth in every direction; people walked or rode horseback, but sleek monorail-like trains rode elevated tracks too. Bucky and I exchanged wide-eyed science-nerd looks, then scrambled to press our noses against the windows like kids on a vacation road trip. Steve was equally agog, though, and an almost reverent “Holy _fucking fuck_ ,” from the cockpit told me all I needed to know about Tony’s reaction.

The few minutes it took for Tony to locate our destination in the middle of the city was not nearly enough time to appreciate our surroundings. “I’d walk around like a tourist, trippin’ over my jawbone,” Bucky remarked as we settled on a landing pad outside a large, ornate structure. A half-dozen women stood in a line watching us disembark, brightly uniformed, spears in hand and dark shaven heads lustrous in the sunshine. At the end of their line, two other people waited, a handsome man in an embroidered tunic and trousers, and a regal-looking older woman in a long skirt and an ornate headdress.

“Welcome to Wakanda,” the man said as he stepped forward with a smile, and I recognized his voice immediately. “Sergeant Barnes, I regret your ordeal has left you still wounded, but I hope my sister and her team can be of assistance.”

“Thanks, your, um, your majesty,” Bucky stumbled. “I hate feelin’ like I’m takin’ advantage of your kindness.”

T’Challa laughed. “As long as my mother lives, no one will take advantage of our kindness.” He half turned as the woman moved up to his side. “Queen Mother Ramonda, may I present Captain Steven Rogers, Mr. Anthony Stark, Sergeant James Barnes, and…” He looked toward me, and his eyebrow went up.

“Christine Everhart, your majesty. I’m honored to finally meet you in person.” I hoped my smile didn’t betray my nerves.

“Oh!” the king chuckled and waved a hand when I tried a small curtsy. “No, no, there is no need for ceremony. We do not do that here. The pleasure is mine as well, although Mr. Stark gave me cause to assume our joint venture was not a matter of public knowledge. Why is the Avengers’ public spokesperson in attendance?”

“I’m not here in a professional capacity, your majesty. It’s…ah, purely personal.” I felt myself flush, and flailed, until Bucky’s cool metal hand closed around mine from behind and his flesh hand settled on my shoulder.

“I’m hopin’ what you can do, sir, ma’am, is gonna help me break free and get my life back,” he said, his voice calm and firm as it had not been a moment before. “But it’s a mighty scary proposition, for a bunch’a reasons, and I couldn’t go to it without my best gal beside me. You understand, right?”

Though T’Challa frowned, his mother broke into a smile of sudden comprehension. “Ah, of course.” She passed her son to take my other hand in hers. “Be welcome here, my dear, and be at ease. My daughter is the brightest mind of our age, and if anyone can break the bonds these evil men have laid upon your beloved, she can.” Tony cleared his throat. I didn’t even look his way, the little shit.

Queen Ramonda deputized one of the guards to escort us to a suite where we could rest, and ordered us a snack. The Wakandan definition of a ‘snack’ included grilled lamb, spiced grain porridge, heaps of fresh fruit, and creamy cold buttermilk. While Steve and Bucky inhaled platefuls, I wondered whether Wakanda offered cooking classes to visitors. Tony sampled everything, but halted when his phone buzzed. “Oh, what the hell, kid…be right back.” He stepped out of the sitting area into a bedroom of the suite, where earlier Bucky had tried to insist I take a nap (I refused; it was like him to try to sneak off into his own nap of the frozen variety the instant my back was turned). 

Ayo, our escort, returned just after Tony finished what sounded like a long-distance scolding of Peter Parker and rejoined us. “The princess sends word all is ready. I will take you to her lab.” The lab, it developed, was inside the highest mountain towering over the capital city. We got there in a small flyer with VTOL capabilities that had Tony aflutter with techie glee, which amused Bucky enough, I hoped, to distract him from our fast approaching parting.

We swooped through tunnels and past the swift trains, then landed and were led through several corridors into an expansive lab area. Tony almost swooned. Ayo bade us goodbye when a pair of technicians approached. One led Steve, Tony and me to seats along a wall carved out of the living rock of the mountain; the other walked Bucky away, likely for the scans he had mentioned. After a few antsy minutes, our guide retrieved us for one more short walk, through several sealed doors and passageways, into an inner chamber.

Wearing only his undershirt and pants, Bucky sat on a piece of equipment that looked like a stripped-down MRI rig: an exam table with a large clear tube extending past one end, bristling with indicator lights and touch screens. He looked thoughtful, but brightened when we entered. “Hey, guys. D’Kala, the tech that did my scans, he says Shuri—the princess, hah, how ‘bout that Stevie, instead of wakin’ up a sleepin’ princess, I got a princess puttin’ me to sleep. Anyway—he said she’s thinkin’ she can make me a new arm too, once she gets my head straight.”

“Hell, Olaf, I could’ve done that,” Tony grumped.

“Sure you could’ve, Tony, and I know you would’ve; but you couldn’t while I still couldn’t trust my own mind.” 

Tony hmmph’ed. “Just don’t tell her, and we’ll tinker with it later. Deal?”

“Deal,” Bucky said with a short laugh. “Stay on the beam, shellhead, and take good care of my dame, capish?”

“Capish! Damn, you sound like an extra from _The Godfather_.” 

“And you act like we didn’t have Italians in Brooklyn.” 

Chuckling at the banter, Steve moved toward Bucky as Tony released his hand. I hung back to give them one more minute. “You good?” Tony said out the side of his mouth to me.

“Got to be. Not like I have a choice.”

They talked, those two oldest of friends, and I schooled myself to calm. I refused to let my lover’s last sight of me be tears and distress. With a strong hug, Steve finally stepped away. Bucky looked up and at me, and I was in his arms in an instant. “Doll,” he said in my ear, softly but with urgency, “listen, I don’t want you pinin’ away or nothin'. You meet somebody, you don’t have to wait—”

“Do you really want me to smack the snot out of you in front of all these people?” I demanded, suddenly, if fleetingly, furious. “I love you. You have my heart, Buck, I couldn’t give it to another if I wanted to. Which I don’t, let me hasten to clarify. I’ll miss you every day, I’ll pray every day, that it’s a day closer to the day I see you again; and when the Wakandan princess gets through working her magic, I’ll be right here waiting.”

“I love you too, an’ I feel like I’m ditchin’ you, but it’s better for everybody if I do this. I—I can feel him, Zima, in here, like, a mouse movin’ around in the walls, scared.”

I shifted back, took his face in my hands and held his eyes with mine. “Zima, I know you can hear me, you said so before. Don’t be afraid. The trigger words, that let other people make you do things you don’t want to do—when those are gone, you and Bucky can be one again, like you’re supposed to be. When I say ‘I love you’, I mean you as much as Bucky. You’re going to be fine.”

Bucky matched my movement, cupping my cheeks in his hands and pulling me back in till our lips met. From behind me, I heard Steve say, “Oh man, really?” and Tony start making a mock-barfing noise. 

“Shut _up_ , punk,” Bucky said, at the exact instant I said, “Shut _up_ , Tony.”

It was heartening, I guess, that we parted on a laugh. The joy was hard to hold on to, though, as I watched the techs settle him on the table, strap him in, and tilt the table until it sat half-upright. I fought back a shudder of sudden déjà vu. Tony’s hand tightened on mine, and he made a small questioning sound. “It looks like…like Killian’s rig. Where he had Pepper and me.” Tony put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. Steve stood resolute on my other side, but I knew his heart had to be aching too. I reached over and took his hand in mine. Tony saw me move, and he lifted his hand to reach that bit farther and pat Steve’s shoulder.

When the clear tube slid up and around him, for all his brave words, I saw Bucky catch his breath. He had closed his eyes, probably to calm and ready himself, but they flew open and found mine. I nodded, and made myself smile. He smiled back, and his eyes fluttered shut again just before the hiss of chemicals sounded.

I didn’t start to cry until the tube was completely frosted over, just in case he looked for me again before the cold took him down into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of the tweaks to the canon timeline in the Wordsmith verse, instead of Tony being in India when he sent the remote suit to Peter in Homecoming, it happens here, while he’s in Wakanda.


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on for Chrissy, but it isn't nearly as bright with Bucky gone, and she finds solace with her friends. One exception: the press conference set up to declare Spider-Man the newest Avenger, which does not go as planned, but ends up a joyful and predictably twisted surprise.

I threw myself full bore into activity, to fight off my worry and the loneliness I had foolishly not expected. I wasn’t glad to hear other people admit how much they missed Bucky too, but at least that made me feel less alone in it, even if my position was unique. 

The revised Accords were nearly done, spearheaded by Tony and T’Challa. I helped them all I could. Knowing how Peter had grown close to Bucky, Tony spent more time with the boy (it helped Tony’s missing Bucky too, which, as hard as it still was sometimes for Tony to admit such things, did slink out when he wasn’t putting his weight into hiding it). Peter began to follow me around the tower more, and even asked if he could accompany me to a couple of outside functions. That made no sense, knowing science was his jam, until he confided, “You mean a lot to Mr. Bucky, Miss Everhart, so hanging with you is like, a part of my brain can pretend he’s down the hallway and he’ll walk in in a minute and ask what Ned and I are building this week.”

When I wasn’t banging out press releases to go around the world about the Accords, huddling with foreign contacts to translate them accurately, and my usual Avenger-wrangling, I turned to physical exertion. Steve moved back to the compound to take the load of team building and training off Nat, and occasionally, when missing Bucky got to be too much, I’d head up that way and spend a day or two. Instead of jogging around the tower’s track, or around Manhattan, running through the woods around the compound was a refreshing change. Well, except for Pietro lapping me every few minutes, which was an annoyance until I realized it was his way to distract and entertain me. Sometimes he would even slow down to keep pace with me. We talked about everything and nothing, and he pretended to be impressed by my speed.

Some nights in the tower, I went to bed thinking I was wrung out, only to wake before long in a sweat, from dreams of Bucky’s warm body wound around mine. On those nights, I might trudge down to the gym, grab a practice sword and push through as many repeats of the moves he and Clint had taught me as I could manage. On other such nights, or sometimes even on a particularly harrowing afternoon, I made my way to Nat’s studio, asked JARVIS to play something slamming, and danced until I fell over. Peter found me there one day and joined in, which, since the brat didn’t say anything, I didn’t know until I spun and kicked, and he jumped straight up and stuck to the nearest wall. “You _can_ get down from there, can’t you?” I called.

He could, of course, with no trouble, and flopped down on the floor beside me. “It helps,” he said. “Sort of. When something’s on your mind, or you’re thinking about somebody you miss, or something you didn’t do you should have, or did do that you shouldn’t have—” I chuckled at his stream of words. It was no wonder he and Tony grew closer by the day; they were kindred spirits. “I go swinging, chase down any crooks I see, help anybody I can find, come home tired, and then I can sleep. Usually.” I nodded and offered him some water. “Mr. Bucky used to come over to check on me, and just hang. Once Ned got over the arm thing, he started asking all kinds of questions about what New York was like back in his day. He answered everything he could, but he said he couldn’t remember a lot. He said it was like, there was a black hole in his head, that the HYDRA guys put there. Ned said, ‘oof, big mood’. Then we had to explain what that meant…” I sat and listened to him rattle on. Hearing him talk about his friendship with Bucky actually soothed me as little else had so far. “He said he remembered recent things best. I asked him why and he said, he thought it was because he had things he wanted to remember now, you know, people he cared about remembering. Captain Rogers, sure, but Mr. Stark, and Miss Potts, and you.”

Shuri checked in with Tony regularly. He reported she had found that since the Winter Soldier programming was mostly connected to those trigger words, she believed she could develop an algorithm that would 'reset' Bucky’s mind, in effect, so HYDRA's programming could be destroyed without removing his memories. As Bucky had described, she had created a one-to-one digital representation of his brain so she could test theories without risking any harm to the physical tissue. “I’m starting to think her mom’s right,” he confessed. “Shuri really is the brightest mind of her age. What I wouldn’t give to ditch everything for a few months down there getting schooled in the hall of the teenage mountain tech queen.” I agreed, but knowing that didn’t stop me from worrying. Though I didn’t say anything, Tony must have read it in my face. “Hey, cornbread, your boy is tough. Hell, it took HYDRA years to bend him enough to use him, and even then, as soon as he got any exposure to the truth, he broke loose from them. He’ll be all right. So will you. You’re tough too. Hey, want to blow some steam off? I’ll code a suit to you and we can fly around town.”

That crazy mental image finally made me loosen up. “I do not think so,” I laughed. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but I only have the one power that you keep pointing out. I don’t need to do anything that would get me mistaken for a superhero.”

“Well, now, I never said you were a superhero.”

“Dude. You did not…just…TONY.” The memory of saying that to him, so long ago in that press conference the day he revealed himself as Iron Man, made me squawk and smack him, and then grab him up. “Thank you,” I breathed. “Thank you for being my friend.”

“Don’t thank me yet. There’s still time for me to screw this up.”

I was far more likely to screw anything up, I thought, than Tony, at this point. One element of my job that I could not do from my office or the compound was live face-to-face interactions with media. Steve had contacted the garden folks in Brooklyn to let them know Bucky was all right but would not be there for a while, and Pepper met with her SI staff to pass along the same notification, but when I started to get questions from the press corps, I had to clear the air. From scandal sheets to gossip web sites, rumors about the Winter Soldier’s sudden disappearance raged, and I was going to have to address them without collapsing from hot flashes or ripping tabloid hacks’ faces off in public.

With feedback from our friends, I wrote up a statement and backed it up with a press briefing. “Sergeant Barnes is continuing to recover from the torture he endured while a prisoner of war. He has traveled overseas to receive specialized treatment and complete his recovery.” I added with tongue quietly in cheek as the press clamored, “He appreciates everyone’s concern, I will pass your kind thoughts along the next time I talk to him, but please respect his privacy. It’s a difficult process and he’s still pretty fragile.” Afterwards, Tony cackled and complimented me on the strategically deployed bite of my lip and weighty sigh, that reminded viewers without my having to say a word that my emotions were in play too. I didn’t bother to correct him; those weren’t strategic, just tells I could not fully hide, but if they helped our cause, so much the better.

Pepper apparently decided it was time she took matters into her own hands, that evening, and summoned our entire gal squad to cheer me up. Nat came into town from the compound, Wanda stayed over after her day’s training with Strange, and May even sent Peter off for an evening with Tony to join us. “Can we include a moment of silent prayer that those two don’t blow the tower up?” she suggested.

Maria turned up bearing a bottle of something called malort. “It’s wormwood liqueur from Chicago,” she said. “Fury sent it. He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘tell Everhart to drink a shot of this and she won’t miss Barnes. If she drinks two shots, she won’t miss anything for a while’.” Compassion and kindness, Nick Fury style. (I did drink one shot, just on the dare. It tasted like dirty super-soldier sweat socks smell, but I did sleep well.)

Another more optimistic presser was scheduled for the following week. Tony, with the support of the team, had judged Peter was ready to become a full-fledged Avenger, and asked me to set up a public event for the introduction of Spider-Man as an official team member. Everybody converged on the tower in full uniform, but Peter had other plans. “He turned it down,” Tony told us in the conference room off the main briefing area. “He wants to keep helping the little guy on the ground for a while. Real Springsteen working-class hero thing. Steve! Don’t start with the Disappointed Cap look. I think he made a really mature choice. It surprised the heck outta me.”

“I wasn’t,” Steve said mildly. “With the look, I mean. And you’re right. If he doesn’t feel ready, then he’s not ready. We may not have had that choice, but we can make sure he does, and honor it.”

“Plus,” Sam put in, “even with what you and T’Challa worked into the Accords, Tony, he’d have to reveal his identity if he joined the Avengers, right?”

“He’s still a kid,” Rhodey agreed. “Let him finish that before we dump the weight of the world on him.” He gave Tony a knowing grin. “You’re still giving him the suit you made him though, right?”

“Hell yeah. I put too much work into it.” Far from being upset or disappointed, Tony looked fit to bust his buttons with pride. He had all but adopted Peter, and clearly he was pleased that Peter had finally learned to recognize his own limits.

Pepper and Happy hurried in just then, fresh from an SI presentation in Costa Rica, and Wanda and Vision caught them up on events. “I think Peter made a good decision,” I said. “However, as your PR mercenary, I have a room full of people waiting for some big announcement. What would y’all like for me to tell them? The truth is an option, but ‘Spider-Man declined because he’s sixteen’ is kind of spilling some beans, not to mention a let-down.”

Tony scratched his neck in thought, then looked over at Pepper. Suddenly, his face brightened. “Hap, you still got that ring?”

“Do I!” Happy patted his pockets and pulled out a slim gold band with a diamond glinting atop. “I’ve been carrying this since 2008!”

Pepper had started across the room toward Tony, but stopped so fast I could almost hear her high heels screech. I could not have fought back my laugh if my life had depended upon it. “I…think we can come up with something better than that,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I can bring him down and get that if you want, though. He knows I’ve done it before.” Nat’s arms were folded and her gaze at Happy steely. If you hadn’t detected the twitch of her lips, you might have thought she was completely serious. Happy quailed just a bit, though that could just have been him playing along.

“You did propose first, sis,” I added, “and it was suitably sideways. And this is Tony, which means by definition it was never gonna be normal.”

Wanda was openly giggling by now, and Steve looked like he was about to follow suit. “I’m outnumbered,” Pepper lamented. “I can’t believe you had that in your pocket, Happy, you traitor.”

Nat laughed out loud even before I could. “Please. Even Natalie Rushman knew. He shipped you two before you two did.”

Pep glared at her. “And I thought _you_ were my friend. I can have you removed from the SI employee database inside of three minutes. No more stock options or payments into that 401k for Miss Rushman.”

The laugh stuttered to a halt and Nat’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, you mean…”

“Yeah! How’d that—I’ve been SI’s military liaison forever, and—” Rhodey’s protest was lost in the chaos that the team plunged into. Even Vision cocked his head in curiosity.

“It’d buy us some time,” Tony argued to Pepper, who finally smiled and kissed him. “Like we need time.” 

She tossed her head and strode out of the conference room and down the hallway. I dashed after her. “Pep,” I panted, “I was joshing you, the whole team was, you know that, right? I wouldn’t put it past Tony to pull a stunt like this, but all you have to do is say the word and he’ll back off. It’s not like I have to tell you that, I know, but—"

“Chrissy,” she stopped me with an uplifted hand, still smiling. “I’ve got this. Go on, give them a quick update on things. I’ll handle Tony.”

I did so, and was suitably cagey about the purpose of the briefing. Behind me, Pepper and Tony huddled and muttered. I didn’t ask, just stepped aside for Tony to take the podium. He was in rare form, waxing irreverently poetic about his appreciation for his fellow Avengers and the team at SI who kept his business rolling. “That said, though, there’s one thing I’ve known for a long time. If tomorrow, the Avengers voted me out (“you’re already out, old man, you’re retired!” Sam yelled) and the board of SI did too, I’d be all right, I’d be fine, as long—” he half turned to point toward Pepper, off to one side— “as I had this person beside me. I could rebuild it all, or I’d be okay with not rebuilding. Miss Potts, I told you once, you were the one thing I couldn’t live without, and that’s even more true today. You asked something of me, a while back, and I gave you my answer then, but I want…” He paused and took a breath, seeming suddenly more emotional than I had seen him in a long time. Standing along the wall with his teammates, I clasped my hands together and wished fiercely that I was holding Bucky’s hands in mine. “I’ve been wanting ever since that night to make it official and let everybody know, and since putting on the suit and flying in circles over midtown yelling was something you would definitely not approve of, I’ll do something more conventional—that’s rich coming from me, huh?” He walked over to her. With a grunt, he went down on one knee and pulled the ring out of his pocket. Gasps could be heard. Flashbulb flashes and camera clicks filled the room. “Yes, Miss Potts. I will marry you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter, coming the middle of next week! any guesses as to what that might involve? :)


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shuri's breakthrough frees Bucky to start rebuilding his life in earnest. Chrissy promises to see him soon, until a stunning reappearance changes everything for her.

Tony and Pepper’s official engagement was a bright spot in my otherwise grey life. At the next presser, some vulture from an online gossip site tried to reboot the old canard about Pepper sleeping her way to the top. “I’m torn between laughing myself into incontinence, or ripping your face off,” I said bluntly. “These are my favorite jeans so I’m going to refrain from the first one, and I don’t want my friends to have to arrest me so I’m trying really hard to resist the second one. Can’t vouch for how long my resolve will hold out though, so you might want to, as we say where I grew up, git while the gittin’s good.”

Pepper was embarrassed for me after the fact. Tony, being Tony, was emphatically not. The team was amused, especially when the gossip site posted a pic of me at the podium in full rant, with flashbulb light reflecting like flame from my eyes. I wasn’t nearly as amused, but I kept the drifting wisps of disquiet to myself, at least until Tony looked at the photo and visibly tensed to stop a shiver. Clearly I wasn’t the only one haunted by the past.

After leaving Wakanda, Extremis had taken a greater role in my dreams. I suspected the chance resemblance of the apparatus Bucky had occupied to the one that had held Pepper and me captive had brought it roaring back to life in my subconscious. The photo taken by happenstance at just the right moment to make my eyes glow as Pepper’s had in the full grip of the fiery virus didn’t help any, and memories came to haunt my nights in weird and warped forms. Driving myself to exhaustion sometimes helped, but not even as much as it had weeks before. I looked for every activity I could that might distract me, from taking up Bucky’s role in regular visits to the Brooklyn garden, to playing a weird variant of hide-and-seek with Vision at the compound to exercise my neglected ability to track the Mind Stone.

Another brief turn for the better came when Shuri finally broke through in her research to address the Winter Soldier, with an algorithm that was able to effectively flush the trigger words’ influence out. The day Tony called me to his workshop, ostensibly to check out his new hologram teleconferencing software, and I found a ghost-fuzzy but grinning figure of Bucky standing beside a baffled DUM-E, it took all I had in me not to go to my knees. “Olaf, put some shoes on and come get your woman,” Tony joked while I hugged his neck. “She’s ruining my reputation as a cold-blooded rich asshole.”

“Fine, get the hell outta there and go kick some puppies to redeem your image or somethin’, Shellhead,” Bucky mock-growled with no heat. Tony complied, fake-complaining all the time. “Hey, doll. You doin’ okay?”

“Tired,” I admitted. “Busy. Worrying. But much better now. Are you out of cryo for good?”

“Hope so. Shuri’s workin’ on my arm, and I’m tryin’ to get my head on right.” He shifted and for the first time I noticed the absence of his left arm.

“Are you hurting? Can…can you feel Zima, still?”

“Nope to both. Little sore and achy, that’s more from stayin’ in one spot for so long, and tired, which is weird considerin’ I was expecting a nice long nap, huh?” He cocked his head in thought. “Zima is—he’s here, but not like before. More like I’m, processin’, I guess? The memories he had that I didn’t have. It’s weird. Shuri thinks she can help with that too.”

“How long? Any idea?”

He shook his head. “They can put me up here with th’ royals, but …she said there’s a place out in the country, and y’know how I always kinda liked the idea of that, of nature an’ animals an’ such. I might go there and rough it awhile, take some time to get t’know myself again before I inflict my company on anybody else. Does that make sense, Chris? It’s not like I don’t want to be with you, I do, more’n anything, but I—I need—”

“It makes perfect sense, sweetie,” I said when he faltered. “You know I won’t demand anything of you that you aren’t ready to give. If I’m not the first person you want to see, I’m fine with that.”

“Maybe not the first, doll, but always the last,” he assured me, his eyes softening.

The rest of the team was thrilled to hear the good news. The twins and Peter nearly fell over each other to get to the lab the next time Bucky called, and Steve demanded Tony teach him every hack to fly to Wakanda. I laughed myself silly several weeks later when Bucky admitted he had somehow ended up the custodian of a small herd of goats, and had named them after Avengers. (The most stubborn one was Steve, and the one with the best beard, naturally, was Tony.)

Knowing he was out of cryo was a relief, but I still missed him as much as air, and my sleep patterns didn’t improve much. A lot of that was due to my work; besides the usual fuss, a whole new crop of situations kept springing up for me to nurture along like flowers, or whack down like weeds. One particularly convoluted negotiation took me back to the old days when I was learning to navigate the river of bullshit that was Hollywood.

I knew, as did anybody who hadn’t been living under a rock for the past twenty years, the Simon Williams film version of Tony’s early life. Truth be known, I probably knew it better than most, having heard Tony bitch about it as long as I had known him; but it had been a financial success, however factual or not it had been, and that was pretty much all a studio cared about. For those reasons, plus a few more, I was shocked when that very studio contacted me with a proposal to forward to Tony, asking authorization to do a second film covering the years since his ill-fated trip to Afghanistan.

You think I was surprised? Tony was dumbfounded. Then he refused, unless the other Avengers got their fair share of credit. I had to hand it to the studio, though; they had planned ahead. A reply bounced right back, stating they were envisioning the Iron Man film as the first of at least three, followed by a modern retelling of the Captain America saga (with Steve’s cooperation, they hoped) and a big-budget, special-effects-laden account of the Avengers’ meeting and first mission.

Collective excitement ensued, tempered by caution. Steve and Nat came into town for an OG huddle, and Clint beamed in via Tony’s new tech. All agreed that they wanted approval of major elements like the script and the key casting decisions. After some of the stunts I had seen studios pull, I appreciated their care. Thankfully, most of those calls had not yet been made, although a former co-worker who worked there had slipped me a video of one screen test for the role of Tony that excited me to no end. “The Sherlock Holmes guy?” Steve said brightly. “He’s good! And, yeah, he looks enough like Tony, I think he could pull it off.”

“Not nearly as handsome,” Tony pretended to pout.

Nat swatted him playfully. “He’s an excellent actor. I’ve seen some of his other work. And a strong person, if you’ve read any of his background.”

“Which I have,” Clint put in. “Laura’s way too fond of him for my liking. You okay with a felon playing you on the big screen, Tony?”

“Hell yeah, I saw the screen test. Nobody could do better, unless I played myself, which I could do, probably. Dad had a movie studio briefly, back in the day.” He paused, his mouth pursed in thought. “Guess I could start Stark Pictures up again. Might be one thing I could do better than him, at long last.”

“Damn,” Clint groaned. “If I was actually there, I’d knock you winding, shellhead. The history books our grandkids read? Your shit-for-brains old man is gonna be a footnote under your name, and that’s all.”

Tony was already taking a breath to return fire, but Clint’s praise stopped him with his mouth half open. It would have been hilarious, if it hadn’t been so unexpectedly sweet. On second thought, it was hilarious anyway. “Um, thanks, Katniss,” he finally got out.

It was a good day, all things considered. I emailed the team’s requirements to the studio, and copied the missive to the attention of the producer heading the project, a sharp woman named Susan who sounded from our one phone conversation like she would take no crap and spare no effort to make the films something worthy of their subjects. Steve took off for Brooklyn to touch base with his and Bucky’s gardening friends, and Nat went to check on her dancing kids and Clint’s building, but they returned for supper. An accidental exposure to cumin in one of the SI break rooms had led Tony to discover that the smell of shawarma spices no longer triggered a panic attack, so he called the place they had landed after battling the Chitauri and ordered some of everything they had.

Pepper kicked off her shoes when she hit the old common floor with the delivery, and we all settled down for an evening of eating and talking and laughing that felt more like the Avengers’ old days than anything I could recall for a while. Tony said he had even considered selling the tower recently, because it felt so empty with his comrades gone. “We need a presence here in town, though, while the Accords are still up on the rack. Until I persuade the UN to let me install the new holotech and beam into their meetings from Malibu or wherever—Coulson says Tahiti is very nice—being based here makes it easier for me to drag my ass over there. Granted, that’s a compelling argument in _favor_ of selling the building, but, hey, show your pride in me for adulting, Potts.” 

Pepper just flicked a bit of diced tomato his way. “We’d have to plan ahead for SI if you did, though,” she noted. “They’re settled into the tower so well. And you are not dragging me off to some isolated island, however palatial, where I can’t go out to eat and try shoes on occasionally.”

“I got it, I got it. No remote paradise. But I’m still taking a page from Clint’s book, so you’ll have more space than the roof to play with your compost bins and potting benches. Gonna buy you a farm one day, Pep, and hope nobody comes along and blows it up.”

“Another good reason for an Avengers presence here,” Nat put in. “The threat of Thanos is still on the table, and we haven’t heard from Thor and Loki in longer than I’m comfortable with.”

A less easy quiet fell, broken only by chewing. “True,” Steve conceded, his face sobering.

Tony sighed. “Way to kill a mood, Romanoff. Guess I better not mention the most important reason that Stark Tower is still Stark Tower.” To the inquisitive looks all around, he said with a grin around a bite of chicken, “May threatened the Stark family jewels with a scalpel if I move her job, and I’m engaged, remember? I might want a kid someday.”

“If you ever get past being a kid yourself,” Steve kidded, and the clouds blew over and the mood brightened again.

Before Steve and Nat decided to stay the night and went off to their respective floors, Tony brought up one more bit of Avengers business. The UN reps he was working with had suggested the team could lead in shaping public opinion, especially among other enhanced persons, by going on a tour of sorts. The idea was that Avengers could talk to some of the groups of enhanced that were starting to arise around the world, get their input and share the details of the Accords’ plan with them, as well as talking to regular community groups and organizers. They were hashing out details and debating who would be best on which team in what part of the world when I said good night.

I should have gone straight to my apartment and to bed, looking back, but I was too darn competent for my own good. Checking my in box one more time was my downfall. A studio executive had gotten my email, and his reply was every inch an arrogant, entitled asshole of the kind I hadn’t had to deal with since I moved east. I sent back a curt and uncompromising response on the team’s behalf and hauled myself to bed, infuriated, and sweating so profusely I almost asked JARVIS if the HVAC in the tower was working. A pleasant-smelling incense and thoughts of Bucky helped me wind down. Seven hours ahead of us, he was probably sound asleep…was he at the royal compound, or in the little farmhouse he had mentioned? I couldn’t wait to see him again, to curl up with him at night (though I was still overheated, so tonight would not be a good one). More, I couldn’t wait to get him back here, to take him to Tennessee and introduce him to Great-aunt Avonelle—she was going to love him…

Mental images of showing Bucky my parents’ old place and the swimming hole my cousins and I skipped school to dive in merged as I dozed off, into a dream of walking through the old Salem cemetery where Civil War soldiers were buried. Night winds creaked through the trees, wet soft soil tugged at my feet, a grave yawned before me and a metal arm thrust upward. Unable to scream, I tried to back up but I was stuck, sucked down. A burly familiar body followed the arm up out of the ground, but instead of the cold of the grave, or the cool winter-sky-blue I knew so well, Bucky’s eyes blazed. He opened his mouth and the woods, the leaning gravestones, the grass and the very earth itself burst into flame around me…

I woke with a gasp, soaked and shaky, to the smell of smoke. “Dammit!” I yelped, fought my way out of my tangled bedcovers and checked the smoldering corner of the comforter. How the hell had it caught fire, when the incense burner was on the other side of the room—and when I clambered out of bed and went to check it, it had burned itself out in its soapstone sheath and peacefully expired. “JARVIS, did I sleepwalk? Or, I dunno, light up a candle and forget it, or—is the wiring acting a fool? Or something?”

“To the best of my knowledge, none of the above, Miss Everhart.” The AI almost sounded regretful that he couldn’t help more.

It made no sense—until I thought back, way back, to a New Year’s Eve in south Florida, and Tony drinking on a balcony, saying _the bedcovers caught fire, scared Pepper pretty badly._ That was absurd, though; Tony deadened the Extremis virus, and it had never taken hold in my body anyway, other than a few fleeting flickers that might not even have been activation. There was no way it could suddenly resurrect like a corpse digging its way out of the ground.

Well, hell. Now I was up, there was no way I could go back to sleep anytime soon, and nobody awake (I hoped not, anyway) to go and pester. Even JARVIS needed downtime to process and update and such. I decided to go fix myself a snack and stare at the TV, or maybe read something fluffy and brainless. While I pulled an apple out of the fridge and found my favorite knife, I tried to remember if the fanfic series where the team got zapped by some fool wizard and turned into a business of ferrets had updated lately.

As it happens, it is not wise to ponder too deeply on crack fanfiction with a sharp implement in your hand. I found this out the hard way when instead of the apple, I cut a deep slice in my finger. I yelped, swore, stuck my finger in my mouth and grossed out a bit at the taste of blood. The next moment, it was replaced by a sharp tingle, almost a shock, as if I had stuck my tongue to a bare wire. I jerked my finger out of my mouth, and the cut was _glowing_ , like light shining through a crack in an old wall. As I stared in disbelief, the cut narrowed until it was closed. The light vanished, and so did the wound.

So. Yeah. No more denial, after that.

I knew where I had to go first. If, somehow, Extremis had revived in my system, where it had never really been operational to begin with, that made it all the more likely to have happened in Pepper’s too. She hadn’t mentioned any weird occurrences, but then, neither had I, and thinking back, I saw things that should have made me suspicious, that had made me suspicious, before I was figuratively smacked in the face. 

Although I would have loved to keep this to myself, there really wasn’t another option. Bruce wasn’t even here, and his had been half the brilliance that had saved Pep and me. I knew good and well how Tony was going to react, and it pained me, to be so certain he would beat himself up for failing to stop the virus. 

That said, I was not about to go wake them up; if they were sleeping peacefully (which they were; I confess, I asked JARVIS to peek in on them and he confirmed it) then let them have these last few hours before more fresh hell broke loose on us. I sat up the rest of the night, examining myself, praying, and wondering how the hell this happened. 

When morning came, I dressed, carefully. My suits, like Tony’s, were my armor, and even though the enemy was inside me now, I still felt a bit stronger when I could look at myself in the mirror and didn’t see a scared and lonely woman looking back. Besides, I reflected, I didn’t want to self-immolate looking a mess. Sleep deprivation and sudden freakitude will make you think some crazy shit.

Down to the SI executive floor I rode, and trekked to the CEO suite feeling like I was marching to execution. Pepper looked up when I stopped at her open door. “Hey! Good morning. What’s up?”

“Pep, do you have a minute? I need to bounce something off you. It’s, um, pretty important.”

Instantly, she put her tablet down. “Yes, of course. Come in. You look…I haven’t seen you look like that in a very long time, Chrissy. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I perched on the edge of the chair in front of her desk and took a deep breath, then held up my hand with its thin white scar that had not been there a few hours ago. “I don’t know how, Pepper, but…it’s Extremis. Somehow, it woke up, in me, last night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations to those who suspected a while back that Extremis might not be as dead as previously thought! Book 8, Fireblade, will hopefully start posting next Monday or Tuesday, and we will follow Chrissy through dealing with this sudden upheaval of her life, as well as, um, the events of Infinity War.
> 
> As always, thanks to all readers for kudos and comments and squees and such. I larb you all!

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, comments are appreciated!


End file.
